Blind Fury

by PendulumDeath

Summary:

It was true that Heiwajima Shizuo loathed Orihara Izaya, so his hatred for the Information Broker was bound to eventually burst into a fit of blind fury, that one moment of giving in to his rage turning their lives and those of the people around them upside down.

How far will Izaya go before his thirst for revenge finally gets satisfied?

Notes:

This fic is dark, very dark and then even darker. You've been warned, so read at your own risk.

Chapter 1: Darkness Descends

No matter how many times Heiwajima Shizuo chased Orihara Izaya out of Ikebukuro, the Information Broker would always come back. It was an undeniable fact and Shizuo held no pointless belief that things had miraculously changed in the span of a couple of days. Sighing in annoyance, his squinted eyes darted around in the vain hope of finding the insect (a nickname Shizuo often used to refer to his archenemy), but he was unable to locate him no matter how hard he focused on his task, mostly due to the fact that the raindrops falling from the sky and splashing onto the pavement considerably lowered one's visibility during dusk. Unfortunately, not spotting him right away did not mean that Izaya was not somewhere nearby, waiting for the right moment to reveal his disgusting smug face and ruin Shizuo's day, the insect's sole presence bringing about chaos in both his life and in the city that never seemed to sleep.

It was always the same for Shizuo, the despicable louse showing up in Ikebukuro to either conduct shady business or to piss him off just for his own sick amusement, as though Izaya got his kicks out of riling him up on a daily basis. The flea should get in line, thought a scowling Shizuo as he took out a cigarette from a slightly crumpled pack, placed it between his lips and lit it up. He took a drag from it and slowly exhaled the smoke, repeating the action a few more times until the itching need to satisfy his vice temporarily diminished. He felt as though he was a bomb ready to explode, and the fact that his day off from work couldn’t have started any worse didn't exactly help matters either.

That morning, he had been woken up from his sleep by someone knocking on the door, and no matter how hard he tried to ignore the noise grating on his nerves, he eventually got out of bed, mind set on beating to a bloody pulp the person who didn't seem to know when to give up. There were three more knocks during the time it took Shizuo to get from his bed to the door, the desire to murder the man growing exponentially until reaching critical mass as the extremely aggravating sound somehow summoned vivid imagines of nails being hammered into his brain.

“What you want?!” Shizuo snarled after he grabbed the handle and yanked it backwards, the door falling from one of its hinges from the sheer strength he put behind the action.

“He-Hei-Heiwajima Shi-Shizuo-san?” the man stuttered the name because of how badly his body shook with terror.

“Yeah, what do you want?” Shizuo growled out the words while trying his best to keep his rage in check so that he wouldn't crush to fine dust the much smaller man before him after finally figuring out that the guy was there to deliver something (if the clothes he was wearing were anything to go by).

The handle broke in Shizuo’s hand and the man yelped, his previously small eyes comically widening and almost bulging out of his skull at the terrifying display of raw strength. “I’m s-so so-sorry, Hei-Heiwajima-s-san!!!” the man stammered once again and took a deep bow before running away on shaky legs.

Shizuo blinked a few times as he watched the retreating form before he shrugged and moved to close the door. It was only then when he finally noticed the neat box placed against the outside wall of his apartment. As far as he knew, the man should've gotten his signature, so he scratched his head in confusion as he stared at it for a few moments before he bent down to pick it up in order to identify the sender. His expression softened a bit when he read the name written on the label, after which he gently lifted the box, turned around and kicked the door shut behind him. He could feel the tension in his body slowly starting to ebb away and he smiled fondly as he sat down on the couch and proceeded to open the package. Judging by the look and the size of the box, he had an idea about what was inside, so when his eyes fell on the unexpected, he didn't know how to react.

“Eh?!” Shizuo exclaimed none too smartly. For once, he was at a complete loss for words. He blinked a few times, but then his brows furrowed in confusion and he clenched his fingers into the expensive-looking material of the varied clothing articles before he picked them up one by one and dropped them on the couch, not expecting to receive such gifts from his little brother because Kasuka usually sent him bartender uniforms as an incentive for him to work harder on keeping his job at the bar.

He thought that would be all, so he felt his stomach churn when his eyes fell on the seemingly innocent piece of paper placed at the bottom of the now empty box. His limbs shook with fine tremors as he slowly picked it up and opened it, after which his vision started wavering while his mind assimilated the meaning of the written words.

 

---

 

These should be of more help to you

now that you've lost your job at the bar.  

Love, Kasuka

  

---

 

As the feeling of shame began to grow, the belief that he had once again disappointed his brother tore at his heart. He slowly balled his hand into a clenched fist, crumpling the accursed piece of paper and puncturing skin with how hard he was squeezing it. Droplets of blood fell down on the worn-out carpet, but he didn't notice with how hard his mind was being bombarded by strong feelings of self-loathing.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, now he knows that I lost my job, he thought in a panic, unsure of how to face Kasuka now that his younger sibling had most likely realized that his brother was a lost cause. Feeling completely defeated, he reclined against the couch and covered his eyes with the back of his other hand while hopelessness overtook both his body and mind. He stayed like that for a long time, drowning in self-loathing as he recalled all those times when he ended up disappointing his friends and family because of his unrestrained rage.

It was always the same, with him trying his best to lead a normal life until the smallest of things set him off and he would end up destroying everyone and everything in his path. He was aware that he had problems and that he was beyond help, but it still hurt to know there was nothing he could do to change the awful human being that he was. No, not a human being, a monster, he thought dejectedly, and since he lacked the will to even do something as simple as getting up, he stared at the ceiling for a long time as the hours ticked by awfully slow while his mind was being bombarded by all sorts of painful memories.

That had been his day until then, along with aimlessly wandering Ikebukuro's streets for hours on end because the air in his apartment felt terribly suffocating. Scowling, he retrieved the lighter and the almost empty cigarette pack from the pocket of his bartender uniform pants before he pulled one out and placed it between his lips. He sighed as the taste of nicotine flooded his lungs after the first smoke and he only managed to go through a quarter of the cigarette before the rain suddenly started pouring and he was forced to get rid of it while he waited inside a store.

Heiwajima Shizuo was the sort of creature who enjoyed basking in the sun all day long, the proof being the ever present purple tinted-glasses that he wore. He hated the rain in general, but at that moment he despised it more than usual because the cold air seeping into his bones was making him more irritated than he already was. At some point he tried to block out the annoying voices buzzing around him, but that proved to be an impossible feat. Resigning himself to his fate, he leaned against the doorway and watched the gloomy outside world as the cover of the night progressively settled upon the usually lively city, the rain slowly relenting until finally stopping altogether.

Growing tired of brooding over his general inadequacy, Shizuo figured that it was best to simply go home and sleep it off because there was nothing else for him to do besides waiting for the next day when he'd go back to work and hopefully vent his fury on some scum who deserved to get his head repeatedly slammed into a wall. For the first time in his life, he was looking forward to brutally beating up someone.

Mind set on going back to his apartment, he sighed and ran a hand through his dyed locks in resignation, but before he even had a chance to take a step outside the store, the bane of his existence that was Orihara Izaya passed him by with nary a care in the world, the man's expression looking as smug and as cheerful as ever. Muscles tensing, he growled and convulsively flexed his hands in a desire to viciously crush the loathsome insect. After all, it was Izaya's fault that he'd disappointed Kasuka once again. "Kill, kill, kill," he muttered while the people around him quickly made themselves scarce.

Today you die! Today I'll fucking kill you no matter what!

Notes:

There is a comic made by LZonnaArt for this chapter and you can read it here:

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9

Thank you! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

Chapter 2: Breaking Evil

It was getting dark outside when the rain finally stopped pouring over Ikebukuro, a thick fog quickly settling over the city. There weren’t many people on the streets, but the bone-chilling cold wasn’t something that could keep someone like Orihara Izaya away from his beloved humans. He usually had ulterior motives for showing up in Ikebukuro, like feeding Shizuo's enmity towards him out of pure, twisted amusement or trying to start a gang war, but this time around he was hoping not to run into the man because he was enjoying his evening stroll. Out of nowhere, he felt a sense of foreboding as a chill ran down his spine, and he knew it wasn't from the cold the moment he got hit by a vending machine, his body flying unceremoniously through the air before he fell head first into concrete, the unconventional weapon having been savagely thrown at him by none other than Heiwajima Shizuo, the only human that Izaya could never love.

"IIIZAAAAYAAAA!" a monstrous voice boomed throughout the street, Ikebukuro's beast heading towards him with quick edgy strides.

Ignoring the pain that bloomed inside his brain the moment his head violently collided with the ground, Izaya struggled to get up before the beast could catch him and tear him apart, the man's antics never failing to amuse him regardless of the pain he was in. He pulled out with a shaky hand the switchblade he always carried with him in the right pocket of his coat and he spun around, brown-red eyes falling on the incarnation of Wrath stomping towards him. "Ahh, Shizu-cha~an! I had a feeling it was you," he greeted in a singsong voice, knowing that the sound alone would grate on his archenemy's nerves.

With his control hanging on nothing more than a thread, Shizuo barely managed to stop before reaching Izaya. To put into words how angry the flea's mere presence made him was impossible, so he tightly shut his eyes and took a deep breath in order to be able to speak as opposed to mindlessly charge forward. "I thought I told you to stay out of Ikebukuro,” he finally snarled, honey-colored eyes opening and boring holes into his foe.

Izaya snickered, their routine always starting with the same words they had told each other a thousand times before. "Ah, but Shizu-chan, when have I ever listened to you?"

Unsurprisingly, the meager control Shizuo had shattered the moment the insect's words reached his ears. "Kill! Kill! Kill!" he chanted through clenched teeth like it was some sort of mantra while his body shook in uncontrolled rage.

One glance at the barely leashed fury in the beast's gaze told Izaya that was his queue for getting the hell out of there, so without further delay he spun around and started running in the opposite direction, the force of nature that was Heiwajima Shizuo hot on his heels. If this was any other day, he would’ve lost Shizuo in a matter of minutes, but this time around it felt different. For some peculiar reason, Shizuo seemed much faster and angrier than usual, and as though such a thing wasn't already bad enough, Izaya was having a hard time avoiding the obstacles in his path, his head injury throwing off his balance to the point that he could no longer effortlessly flip, twirl or soar through the air the way he usually did. His headache also kept growing in intensity the more he ran and he knew that he couldn't afford to play with Ikebukuro’s beast while possibly sporting a concussion. Knowing from experience that Shizuo didn't usually bother to chase him outside of Ikebukuro, he concluded that the best way to get rid of him was to go back to Shinjuku.

With that thought in mind he turned left and jumped over a fence to put some distance between himself and his pursuer, almost twisting his ankle in the process when he roughly landed on the other side. He heard a loud noise from behind him and he smiled, immediately assuming that the brute had most likely brought down the fence instead of jumping over it because Shizuo was like a tornado knocking down everything in its path. Mind going in overdrive to find a way to escape, he finally remembered there was a building with a back exit nearby, so he took a sudden left and rushed towards it, hoping to lose Shizuo through the intricate hallways. He dashed through the front door and continued to sprint, their rushed footsteps resonating throughout the empty hallways.

Unfortunately, Shizuo was unyielding in his thirst for blood and Izaya was starting to worry that he wouldn't be able to escape the man hunting him after the beast had almost succeeded in getting his monstrous hands on him a few times. To his chagrin, all his attempts at losing Shizuo by the time he reached the back exit had miserably failed. “Shizu-can is being so persistent today~!” he said out loud, annoyed that his stroll through Ikebukuro had ended in such a fiasco.

“You have no idea, flea!” Shizuo roared and threw a trash can at Izaya, hoping to smack the insect straight into that messed up head of his.

Izaya chuckled as he elegantly evaded it even though he was starting to feel faint from being chased for so long by the relentless beast behind him. “Tsk, tsk, that’s not good enough, Shizu-cha~an! You’re going to have to try harde~er!” he sang, noting with some amusement that his bad habit of taunting the man each time they ran into each other was clearly impossible to get rid of.

Behind him, Shizuo was fuming, his frustration increasing exponentially after each failed attempt because every time he got close enough to catch the flea, Izaya would somehow manage to slip through his fingers. If only he could somehow catch the bastard, he would make him pay; he would kick that scrawny ass until the insect couldn’t get up anymore and just couldn't talk back to him. Unable to think straight anymore, he roared as he grabbed the nearest street sign and swung it left and right in a frenzy, trying to land a hit on the slippery bastard.

Izaya evaded each hit, this time a bit slower than before, and kept on running through the narrow streets for a while, doing his best to throw the beast off his scent. He was starting to feel like a hunted animal and he couldn't remember ever getting this impression during any of his previous bouts with Shizuo. He grit his teeth harder in frustration and tried to further increase his velocity while his heart beat wildly inside his rib cage from the sheer effort it took to run at such speed while feeling queasy.

After a while, he chanced a look backwards and sighed in relief when he saw that he had finally succeeded in losing Shizuo, but he didn't stop yet, wanting to put some distance between himself and the beast before finally slowing down and walking at a normal pace. He sighed in relief when he realized what a close call it'd been and he couldn't help but wonder just what might've happened to make Shizuo so much angrier than usual. It seemed to have had something to do with him, but he couldn’t remember doing anything in particular that day to piss off the beast except for showing up in Ikebukuro, but that was the norm by then. His hand went up to gingerly touch the injury on his head, but he ended up wincing every time his fingertips made contact with the swollen skin. Unfortunately, he was so distracted that he didn’t notice any presence nearby until it was too late and he was grabbed by the neck, pulled into an alley, and slammed into the brick wall hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

“I’ve finally caught you, bastard,” Shizuo growled, his expression bordering on insanity as he glared at his enemy with all the cruelty in the world. He tightened his hold around Izaya's neck and pushed harder, almost squashing him between his body and the wall. Now that the insect was finally in his grasp, at his mercy, he would not let him go without breaking every bone in that body. He could already picture it in his mind, all the ways in which he would make him scream in agony, but the euphoric moment didn’t last long because the silence was shattered by Izaya who started tittering, the suppressed snigger blowing into full-fledged laughter in a matter of seconds.

“What now, Shizu-chan? Are you going to kill me?” Izaya inquired in a derisive tone after he'd finally stopped laughing. He knew that Ikebukuro's beast was a lot of things, but a murderer was not one of them.

Snarling, Shizuo kept squeezing the frail neck until the previously pale face started turning blue. He couldn't understand how Izaya could still laugh in his face after being caught, the man's attitude making him wonder if perhaps Izaya had lost his mind. It was a child's play for him to break the flea's neck as if it were a twig, and yet Izaya didn't seem to comprehend the danger he was in. Reluctantly, Shizuo loosened his grip, barely restraining himself from wringing the bastard's neck once and for all.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Izaya continued after he'd finally stopped wheezing, his lips set into a malicious smirk. “I have a feeling that Shizu-chan can’t kill anyone because he’s all bark and no bite.”

Shizuo once again tightened his grip around Izaya’s neck but otherwise remained silent, a violent storm going on inside his mind. He knew the man was taunting him because that was what Izaya always did whenever they ran into each other, but it still annoyed him to see how easily he could get riled up, like the flea knew exactly which buttons to push in order to make him lose his sanity and send him into a murderous frenzy. His eyes narrowed into slits and he stared at the insect, trying to decide what to do next.

Irritated that Shizuo was just scowling at him instead of doing something, Izaya started struggling in the hope of somehow freeing himself from the brutish grip so that he could get away from there, but no matter how hard he tried to push him away he was unsuccessful, the task of shoving Ikebukuro's beast away from his person being no easier than trying to move a mountain. Jaw stiffening, he glared back at the man as the prolonged silence somehow made him nervous; after all, it wasn't in the beast's nature to hold him there against the wall without doing anything.

The sound of a thunder splitting the sky in half seemed to have finally snapped Shizuo from wherever his mind had been wandering because he peeled Izaya off the wall and dragged him towards the far end of the alley where he shoved him off roughly before backing away just a bit. Izaya raised his head and looked up into his enemy’s eyes, a shiver running down his spine when he saw the way in which they shun into the darkness of the night. He despised feeling trapped, so he pushed himself to his feet, took out the switchblade from inside the pocket of his coat and pointed it in his opponent’s direction, ready to fight his way out of there through whatever means necessary. “Shizu-chan is being awfully quiet tonight,” he observed, frowning.

Shizuo glowered at the disgusting insect before him and shoved quivering hands inside the pockets of his pants before taking a deep breath and looking up at the murky sky. “I hate you, flea,” he finally said through clenched teeth and lowered his eyes until they made contact with Izaya’s brown-red ones. “I hate you so much that I can barely restrain myself from tearing you apart right now.” He withdrew his cigarettes and lighter from his pockets and flicked open the lighter, the flame dancing for a moment before it wavered in the draft and forced him to cup a hand and incline his head in order to light up the cigarette. Smirking, he took a drag from it, the fire flickering in the darkness and reflecting into Izaya's rusty-red, almost blood-colored eyes. "You'll never even think of coming back to Ikebukuro after tonight," he announced in a confident tone as he pushed the lighter and the cigarette pack back into his pocket before advancing towards Izaya like a predator closing in on its cornered prey.

Izaya dashed forward and tried to thrust the blade into Shizuo’s chest the second he sensed the bloodlust, but his attack failed miserably because of how dizzy he was feeling and he ended up getting viciously punched in the face. He nearly blacked out with how hard he'd been hit, but he clung to consciousness and went for a second attack which unfortunately proved to be nothing more than a fruitless attempt when his wrist was caught and almost crushed by a strong hand, his own fingers loosening around the handle of the switchblade until the weapon fell from his hand and hit the wet pavement with a loud clack. He tried to wring himself out of the iron grip, but Shizuo kept twisting his arm until he was forced to get down on his knees to avoid getting it fractured, the humiliating position increasing the already deep ire he held for the man towering over him. This hurts, he thought, but he still craned his head upwards and gazed defiantly into Shizuo's hateful eyes.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" Shizuo snarled and raised his arm to bash the louse's head in, but his fist halted in mid-air when Izaya's tongue darted forward to lick the split bloody lip. An unexpected wave of lust hit him so hard that he nearly staggered backwards in shock, but he didn't and instead shook his head in an attempt to snap out of it. When that didn't work, he tried to inhale some much needed air, but his breath hitched when Izaya used his free hand to wipe some of the blood away, the accursed flea only succeeding in further smearing it across his lips. He felt the world starting to spin around him for what felt like an eternity and then finally go back into focus when Izaya's voice sliced through the fog in his mind.

"Aww, Shizu-chan, that was not very nice of you. You know how much it hurts my feelings when you get so rough with me for no reason,“ Izaya jeered, struggling to keep his voice steady even though he was in a lot of pain because of the way in which the beast kept squeezing his wrist.

"I have plenty of reasons to bash your head in. Besides, how can I hurt something that never existed to begin with?" Shizuo muttered through too dry lips, still somewhat startled by his body's messed up reaction. No matter how he looked at it, something was very wrong with him if the quickly hardening shaft in his pants was any indication. He shook his head, refusing to admit that he got turned on by the sight of a bloody and defeated Orihara Izaya kneeling at his feet.

"Now you're just being mean," Izaya replied after a while, pouting.

"This is it, flea, it’s now or never. Just as you are now, on your knees in front of me, sincerely apologize for all the shit you’ve done to me over the years and I’ll let you go.”

Izaya burst into laughter for a second time that night. “Shizu-chan is being really silly if he thinks that I will ever apologize to him. I have done nothing that warrants an apology," he chirped. He had to admit that the beast's request was the funniest thing he'd heard in quite some time.

"Except for ruining my life, but you don’t seem to give a shit about it," barked a seething Shizuo as he grabbed Izaya by the hood of his coat, yanked him up after loosening his grip on the bruised wrist and then knocked their heads together as hard as he could.

Izaya hanged there limply in Shizuo’s grasp for a few seconds, until his vision came back into focus and he saw the switchblade shine at their feet. He elbowed Shizuo in the chin in an attempt to free himself, but the man crashed a knee into his chest so viciously that Izaya felt one or more of his ribs crack under the monstrous force behind the blow, the violent action successfully stopping him from reaching the weapon. He staggered backwards, gasping in both pain and shock, and there was nothing he could've done to stop the beast before it grabbed the knife and stomped towards him. He tried to get away, but Shizuo caught him and covered his mouth with one hand, using the other one to shove him into the wall. As expected, his broken rib or ribs protested at the savage treatment and he found himself suffocating from lack of air.

Consumed by hatred and mindless rage, Shizuo drove the knife into Izaya’s thigh deep enough to feel its tip grate against the leg's bone. He didn't stop there, he couldn't; he wanted the louse to suffer more, just as he had suffered over the years as a result of the bastard's schemes. Gazing into Izaya's wide and terrified eyes, he released his hold on the switchblade still deeply embedded into a quivering thigh and took a drag from the cigarette hanging loosely between his lips before he blew the smoke into the insect's face and pressed the burning tip against the pale neck, the smaller body twitching in pain as the once flawless skin sizzled under the scorching heat. He didn't know why he felt the need to do that, but the way Izaya's expression twisted into one of fear and agony only made him want to hurt the insect more.

Izaya was in too much of a daze to be able to think of anything else besides the burning pain radiating from his thigh and neck, the sensation only intensifying the moment the blade was wrenched out of his leg. He was vaguely aware that Shizuo was pushing him down on the ground and then turning him face down, every movement making the pain a thousand times worse. He almost felt relief when Shizuo had finally stopped moving him, but the feeling was soon replaced by dread when his head was yanked backwards and he felt the cold metallic edge of his own switchblade being pressed against his throat.

“I gave you a chance to walk away,” Shizuo growled, drowning in a sea of hatred, “but you laughed in my face instead of taking it.”

Even through the agonizing pain, Izaya still managed to laugh at the words being spoken to him. As expected, the sharp edge of the blade swayed for a moment before being pushed harder into his skin, forcing Izaya to stand still in order to not get his throat cut by the maddened beast. If Shizuo thought that he would beg for mercy, then the beast had another thing coming. "A-and I'll k-keep laughing," he tried to taunt him in a cheerful tone, but his voice shook with the effort it took to speak.

Being the gasoline thrown into the fire that his hatred for the man was, Izaya's words made Shizuo's body quake in blind fury, and with the battle against the last traces of his control lost, he removed the switchblade from the pale throat and banged the man's head so hard into the pavement that a few droplets of blood spattered on the wet stone surface where they mixed with the rain water. “This is exactly what I mean. You’re a bastard, Izaya," he growled, "but you know what? If you keep fucking with people, one of these days you'll get fucked in return. As a matter of fact, today is such a day.”

Izaya didn't know what Shizuo meant until he felt his coat and shirt being roughly pushed up his body. Confused, he froze for a second, after which he started to struggle for all he was worth as the wheels in his brain finally started to turn. No way, he thought, a faint sound of disbelief slipping past his lips. He tried to throw the beast off of him, but Shizuo twisted his left arm behind his back, successfully subduing him once again. Is he really going to―

Panicking, he tried to scratch Shizuo’s face when the beast got close to his ear, but instead of injuring his attacker he got his right hand caught by the blond who twisted it until the wrist broke with a sickening crunch. Izaya screamed, the broken appendage being released in favor of covering his mouth with bruising force in order to muffle the pained screams. Only when what would've been piercing cries finally died down did the hand retract and made its way down his back and towards his pants. “S-Shizuo, you c-can’t do t-this,“ he stammered, dreading what would happen if the beast didn't stop.

“Shut up!” Shizuo ordered, fingers curling around Izaya's belt.

“You can’t do this!!”

“I said shut the fuck up!” he snarled and ripped Izaya's belt off before he proceeded to tug down the man's pants and briefs.

“Are you insane?!” screeched the Informant, Shizuo's incongruous intentions completely throwing him off.

Yeah, flea, I’m insane, you made me this way. This is your fault. If only you had left me alone... If only you didn't fucking exist, he bellowed inside his head because he couldn't stop his body from needing to fuck Izaya into the ground any more than he couldn't stop it from wrecking havoc whenever mindless rage took over and he felt the urge to crush something, someone, anyone.

"Shizuo!" Izaya shouted, hoping to somehow wake him up from the insanity plaguing that brutish mind. "T-This is too much even for you!" he continued, his trembling voice giving away the fear he felt rushing through his veins.

"Shut the fuck up, Izaya!" roared Ikebukuro's beast. "Fucking flea," he continued, "I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget." His own words sounded foreign, disturbing, like someone else was speaking them, but it wasn't enough to deter him. There was also an inner voice begging him to stop before it was too late, and yet the words couldn't reach him when his ears pounded with the sound of his own blood and the hatred for the man and the desire to destroy him were stronger than his wish to not be a monster. It was easier to succumb to the madness than to fight it.

The sounds of Shizuo's buckle unfastening almost made Izaya whimper, the belt's ominous rattling noise making the whole situation that much more real and terrifying. "S-Shi-zu―" he started and then nearly whimpered again when he heard the zipper being lowered before he felt the beast's hard member prod his backside. Completely panicking, he started struggling again, knowing what to expect if he couldn't reason his way out of it. Not even someone like him deserved such a fate. "I don't de―" was the only thing he managed to say before Shizuo covered his mouth with bruising force and brutally thrust into him. He shrieked into the hand covering his mouth as he felt his body being speared through, his fearless facade instantly getting obliterated by the intense torrent of anguish shattering his mind.

Above him, Shizuo groaned, teeth grinding harder against each other the further he tried to push himself in. Once he could go no further, he pulled out agonizingly slow and then buried himself deeper with each new thrust until he was fully sheathed inside Izaya and the flea's bottom was pressed against his hips. He stilled for a few seconds, panting heavily, until he regained his control and started violently thrusting in and out of the quivering body, determined to make the insect regret ever fucking with him; until the 'great' Informant begged for mercy.

Izaya's smaller body convulsed in agony, hot white pain incinerating him from the inside while his resolution to not show his enemy any tears quickly broke with each new vicious thrust. The overwhelming stench of blood made him feel nauseous, and the wetness between his legs, as well as the squishing noise he could hear each time Shizuo thrust into him served as a clear indication that he was bleeding, the tissue tearing being the only way to accommodate the monstrous piece of flesh sliding in and out of him.

“How does it feel to get fucked raw by the person you hate the most?” Shizuo hissed the question through gritted teeth.

Izaya's indignation reached monumental heights and the sheer disgrace of it all riled him up. He started struggling with renewed strength, but his frantic attempts at freeing himself quickly turned out to be futile when Shizuo twisted his arm harder and shoved himself in with a brutal jab. A keening sound spilled through bloody lips at the unexpected force of the thrust and Izaya immediately cursed himself for his mistake, the unintentional pathetic display he had just shown his enemy only serving to further heighten his misery. 

“Broken already, flea?"

“No, no, of c-course not, Shizu-chan, I’m m-merely waiting f-for you to r-resume our sweet love-making,” Izaya sniffled, his voice faltering a little as he breathed out. He was struggling to sound as indifferent as possible, all the while fighting not to break into sobbing as he couldn't even move an inch without feeling that hot pulsating rod painfully rub against his torn inner walls.

Shizuo stilled for a moment, his muscles tensing. He couldn't believe that the flea still dared act so defiant. "You little shit, just die!” he viciously spat out the words.

Izaya couldn’t fight anymore. Everything hurt, especially his pride, and he was painfully reminded of the difference in strength when Shizuo tightened the hold he had on his left wrist and resumed his earlier activity of brutally pounding into him. Jaw stiffening, he refused to beg for mercy, the only proof of his agony being a lone tear running down his cheek. When it came to brute strength, he was no match for Ikebukuro’s beast, and all he could do was lay there in a humiliating state of complete helplessness, waiting for Shizuo to finish and leave him the fuck alone. The pain alone was excruciating, but the knowledge of what was being done to him was unbearable.

Maddened by the hatred he felt towards his enemy, Shizuo pushed Izaya's bleeding head into the wet concrete, released the frail wrist, seized a slender hip and pulled it up until the flea was on his knees, subsequently putting more strain on the injured leg. Satisfied with the new position, he continued from where he'd left off, trying to engrave the pain in every inch of that pale body so that the insect would never be able to forget it.

"Ahh... h-hurts," Izaya sniveled between thrusts when the air wasn’t being knocked out of his lungs while his left hand clawed at the ground in an attempt to get away from the onslaught of pain.

“It’s supposed to hurt, you dumb fuck!” Shizuo sneered and pushed Izaya’s head harder into the pavement.

“My leg, it hurts!!” Izaya shrieked between breaths that sounded like sobs. It was too much, it hurt too much, he just wanted it to stop. Unable to withstand the pain any longer, he finally allowed his tears to freely roll down his face.

Shizuo didn’t say anything. Instead, Izaya felt the fingers in his hair tighten, his head being lifted into the air and then slammed so ruthlessly into the ground that a strangled cry escaped him as pain bloomed into his brain, his vision wavering and darkness creeping in at the edges of his awareness. Cold tendrils of genuine fear started spreading throughout his body at the terrifying thought that Shizuo might really kill him before everything was over and a maelstrom of emotions assaulted his addled mind at the idea of dying such a horrible death. He sobbed as fresh pain radiated up his spine, Shizuo's brutal thrusts increasing in both viciousness and speed.

Please finish already, please stop, please let me go, he wanted to say, but he never did, the only thing stopping him from doing so being the last remnants of his crushed pride and his hatred towards Shizuo as he struggled with everything he had to deny Ikebukuro’s beast the pleasure of knowing just how badly he had broken him. After what felt like an eternity, when Izaya knew that he wouldn’t last for much longer before reaching his limit and giving the beast what he wanted, Shizuo rammed into him hard enough to send him scraping along the ground and then buried himself deep within before finally coming with a deafening roar, pulling a few strands of hair and almost shattering a heavily bruised hip in the process. The sound sliced through Izaya's hazy consciousness like a blade and he couldn't help but let the loud pained cry climbing up his throat burst through bloody split lips.

He felt cold, dead, even though the unbearable pain told him that he was still alive, and intense abhorrence welled up within him at the thought of the beast’s seed coating his torn insides. As soon as Shizuo's hold on him loosened he willed himself to move forward with his still working arm and leg, the need to do something, anything, to regain any shred of dignity spurring him on. The feeling of Shizuo’s member sliding out of him, followed by his own blood and the man's seed gushing out of his torn hole made a nauseating feeling burn through the pit of his stomach. At that point, it was no wonder that his face was slick with tears from the emotional upheaval and the unbearable pain he had been forced to endure at the hands of such a monster. He heard the brute curse and he turned around on instinct, only to regret it when his red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes were met with the sight of Shizuo tucking the bloody softening member into his pants. The world swirled around him and he collapsed on the cold cement, his arms unable to support his upper body any longer while his exhausted mind was tempted to sink into the sluggishness and to let go until his consciousness plummeted into darkness. 

Disgusting, was the word that kept repeating itself into a loop inside his mind while he scrunched his eyes in order to chase away the accursed image. He twitched at the memory of the stabbing pain that bloody thing made him feel, and when he couldn't get rid of it, he opened his eyes, trying to blink away the blurriness of his vision only to lock them with the one who had done such an unforgivable thing to him, the man's honey-brown eyes boring into his dark, almost red ones so intensely that Izaya felt as though he was suffocating. He was too afraid to even breathe, terrified that if he moved a single muscle he would provoke the beast into finishing him off, so they stayed like that for a while, the world freezing around them until the monster finally broke eye contact.

"Now we're even," Shizuo informed him just before he turned around and started walking away, the sounds of footsteps splashing on wet pavement painfully resonating throughout Izaya’s distressed mind.

Eyelids fluttering shut, Izaya took a few ragged breaths, finding it hard to believe that he had succeeded in surviving the ordeal. Finally alone, he thought, his lower lip quivering as he curled in on himself, wild shivers wracking his frail frame and his body starting to go into shock. Even? No, Heiwajima Shizuo, we're not even, not even close. There's a chasm between what I've done to you over the years and what you just did to me.

Notes:

Chapter art (sketch) on deviantArt or tumblr.

Chapter 3: Death's Embrace

As much as he wanted to stay there and not move a single muscle, he knew that he had to get up and go home, least he wanted to die like a dog in that dirty alley where he'd just been raped. He could already imagine someone finding his bleeding sodomized corpse, the sight of it enough to most likely traumatize any of his humans for the rest of their lives. Disgust welled up inside of him at the thought and he steeled his mind on getting out of there no matter what. Grinding his chattering teeth harder, he crawled towards the nearest window, grabbed the metal bars with his left hand and pushed himself up using his uninjured leg, the task of just standing making him want to welcome the blissful unconsciousness bordering on the limits of his awareness.

Not trusting his legs not to buckle, he hung onto the bars for dear life. His eyes were scrunched up in agony and gasps escaped in a jumbled mess at the sheer effort it took to simply keep standing, but he knew that he couldn’t afford to lose consciousness no matter how much his tattered body told him otherwise. He stayed like that for a while, trying to get accustomed to the vivid pain tearing his mind to shreds. His vision flickered once his eyelids fluttered open, and as he took a look at his surroundings, he finally recognized the place where the beast had dragged him and showed him just how easily he could break him. Shizuo had been smart to pick that particular spot, a testimony to the fact that the man knew the area very well, the buildings surrounding him having been abandoned due to the risk of collapsing during a major earthquake.

A jolt of acute pain raced through his entire body, bringing Izaya back to the matter of getting home before he really passed out. He waited for a bit longer to make sure that he wouldn’t faint at the first movement before he bent down and struggled to pull up his pants with only one working and trembling hand, the task proving to be more difficult than he had first imagined because the material kept slipping though his stiff cold fingers as he struggled to tug them up. He almost sighed in relief when they were finally back in place, but the feeling was short-lived when he realized that one of his shoes was missing. His eyes darted around the place until he finally spotted it not far from where he was standing. He took a step towards it in an attempt to reach it, but he ended up throwing up the moment more of his blood and the beast's seed gushed from his abused hole, the disgusting feeling making his stomach turn upside down.

He cursed Shizuo to hell and back, his head pounding much worse than before and the blood from the injuries on his head burning his eyes each time he blinked. When he was finally done puking he wiped his mouth and tightly held his broken wrist as he breathed in and out, disheveled. His drenched body was trembling from both the shock and the cold, agonized whimpers squeezing out between his teeth for a few moments until he scrubbed a hand over his bloodied face, aware that if he didn't start moving soon he would end up having a complete mental breakdown. He proceeded forward, limping towards the shoe until he managed to get to it and slip it on. With a stabbed, swollen leg, a bleeding, torn ass and a broken rib and wrist, his body protested each time he took a step forward, hurting in ways he never thought possible.

He started moving at a snail's pace, back hunched from the intense pain as he dragged his broken body while trying to ignore the pain, at the same time struggling to stop the events of that evening from replaying in his distressed mind, not noticing the person behind him until he was grabbed by the arm and spun around. As he recoiled from the contact, his back hit the wall he was previously leaning against. He stared in fright at the person before him, trying to remember why the face looked familiar.

“Do you need help?” the person asked mechanically, but it looked like Izaya was having a hard time recalling words and what they meant. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?” the man tried again, but there was still no answer. “Orihara-san, what’s wrong with you?”

Finally recognizing his own name, Izaya's eyelids fluttered in an attempt to get rid of the blurriness so that he could take a better look at the person before him. “Who are you?” he asked in a voice so low that the other man had to strain his ears in order to hear him.

“You don’t remember? It’s me, Kasuka.”

“Kasuka…” Izaya repeated slowly, trying to find the information hidden inside the fog in his mind.

“Heiwajima Kasuka, Shizuo’s younger brother.”

“Heiwajima…” Izaya repeated before something in his mind clicked and he shuddered in intense terror as he tried to tear himself away from the fingers capturing his arm.

“Calm down, I only wish to help,” Kasuka assured him as he released his hold, causing Izaya's feeble body to plummet to the ground like a rock. He immediately bent down to pick him up, only for his hand to halt in mid-air when he saw those terrified bloodshot brown-red eyes staring at him as though he had been the one to hurt him.

“Did Shizuo s-send you h-here?” Izaya asked in a shaky voice, panic surging at the thought of the beast sending his little brother to finish him off.

“No, I haven’t talked to him in a while. I’m sorry, Orihara-san, I only wanted to help,” Kasuka spoke softly, unable to comprehend why Izaya was so shaken by his presence.

Realizing that Kasuka had seen the fear in his eyes, Izaya lowered his head in an attempt to hide his face from view, only to raise it again when he heard the sounds of a phone opening and of buttons being pressed. “W-What are you doing?” he nearly squeaked and eyed the man suspiciously, wondering if perhaps he was calling the beast to inform him that his archenemy was wounded.

“Calling an ambulance,” was Kasuka's curt answer.

“Don’t! Stop!” Izaya hurried to demand, aware that Kasuka would never call an ambulance if he knew what Shizuo had done.

“You need help. The injuries on your head look really bad,” Kasuka insisted.

“S-Stop it!” Izaya half-begged and half-demanded, panic-stricken at the thought of anyone ever finding out about the shameful things that had been done to him. He apprehensively waited for Kasuka's response, the hands he tucked beneath his arms shaking with fine tremors as the uncertainty of what the monster's brother would do next seemed to endlessly drag on.

After a few long moments of awkward silence, Kasuka snapped the phone shut and pushed it back inside the right pocket of his jacket before opening his mouth and speaking in the same monotone voice he always used regardless of the situation he was in. “Can I at least take you home?”

Izaya gazed deep into Kasuka's eyes to see if there was any malice in them, but all he could see was emptiness, which was the opposite of what he was used to seeing when it came to the beast, so he nodded, finally understanding that he couldn't get home by himself in the state he was in. He watched as Kasuka called a cab and then waited until the car arrived. He had considered that option too, but he doubted that any driver would let him in when his clothes were soaked in blood.

As expected, he heard the two men arguing, but he couldn’t focus on what they were saying nor did he care enough to try to make out their words, not when his head was painfully throbbing. It was only when Kasuka called his name and offered a hand to help him up that he was brought back to reality.

He took it hesitantly and got up with the other man’s help, all the while trying to fight off the disgust he felt at having Shizuo's brother touch him. He was in too much pain to even stand let alone walk, so he leaned against Kasuka and limped towards the cab. The hardest part came when they reached the car, where he tried his best not to cry out in agony when he had to sit down on the backseat. He heard more than watched Kasuka close the door before the man went around the car to sit with him, all the while the asphyxiating pain in his backside almost bringing fresh tears to his eyes. He ruthlessly bit into lower lip, hoping to stifle any sounds threatening to come out the moment the car started moving. He was unwilling to let others know just how badly he was hurting. I just want to go home, he thought, despairing, before he sank into the sluggishness and allowed his body to fall to the side when the cab took a tight corner, his head somehow ending up in Kasuka’s lap. “I’m… sorry. I just c-can’t―”

“It’s okay, Orihara-san, don’t worry about it," Kasuka said, briefly wondering what exactly had happened to his brother's enemy. It was none of his business though, and as soon as he made sure that Izaya got home, he'd be on his way. It was more than most people would've done, considering what the man had done to Shizuo over the years. "Orihara-san… can you hear me?”

“Y-Yeah,” he answered weakly.

“Where do you live?”

It surprised Izaya that it didn't even cross his mind to inform the driver of his home address. Normally, he would've easily recalled the information, but at that moment he found it extremely difficult to remember, especially when all he could think about was the pain between his legs and the wetness causing wild shivers to wrack his broken frame. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he scrunched his eyes shut and tried to fish out the information he needed out of the violent storm going on inside his mind. He whispered it to Kasuka when he eventually found it because talking just hurt too much, especially when his throat was sore from so much screaming, and then waited for the beast's brother to relay the information to the driver before he could finally allow his consciousness to succumb to the darkness bordering on the edges of his awareness.

It didn't though. Instead, he stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, not even caring that he was leaning against the monster's brother. It felt as though he was drowning in a deep dark abyss where all he knew was agony―the suffocating pain leaving his mind in tatters―until he was forcibly pulled out of it when Kasuka shook him awake and told him they had arrived at the apartment building. Grabbing onto the front seat, he tried to pull himself up but failed, so he waited until Kasuka opened the door and helped him out. Fresh blood gushed from between his legs the moment he stood up again and a pathetic whimper almost slipped past his tightly shut lips at the thought of having to walk. “The key is in the right p-pocket of my pants and my wrist is b-broken, so I can't grab it," he finally said, wanting to get it over with as soon as possible so that he could finally allow himself the privilege of surrendering to the darkness tempting him with its sweet promise of oblivion.

Kasuka nodded and proceeded to unbutton the man's coat and pull out the keys, not failing to notice the way in which the smaller body trembled in what looked like apprehension. He tried not to think about why that was because it was none of his business, so instead he distracted his mind by paying attention to the man's pained noises so as to not aggravate his injuries as they walked up to the apartment.

Izaya nearly cried at the sight of his beloved abode, legs nearly buckling in relief as though he had just reached the end of the line and he could go no further. “Bathroom, t-take me there; it’s upstairs,” he ordered because he knew that he would most likely be unable to make the short trip there by himself.

“Got it." Kasuka helped the man up the stairs, assuming that Izaya was planning to take a bath, and that in turn made him question the viability of the plan when his brother's enemy seemed too weakened by whatever had happened to him to even walk by himself, let alone wash and then walk out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

“Help me fill the t-tub, and then get out of m-my house,” Izaya requested, feeling so exhausted that he could barely stand even while using the sink for support. He watched with red-rimmed eyes as Kasuka turned on the water and left the bathroom, the daunting task of taking off his blood-soaked clothes almost making him want to give up and jump into the water as he was. He knew that he couldn't though, so he steeled his mind and proceeded to take off his coat first, then his pants, only to freeze in shock the moment he caught his reflection in the mirror. He stared, transfixed, unable to tear his eyes away from the blood smeared all over his face, as well as the reddish swollen skin in the shape of fingers encompassing his neck and imprinted over his mouth and jaw.

He'd been injured before, but it was never this bad, and the fact that his archenemy had been the one to inflict the wounds made everything that much worse. He was almost too afraid to take off his T-shirt after seeing the damage to the face, but he knew that he had no choice so he proceeded to slowly take it off before dropping it on the floor, all the while being mindful of his broken ribs. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of looking down at his legs, the blood streaming down his thighs making the room start to spin around him at a dizzying speed. He gripped the sink tighter and moaned in both physical and mental anguish, the disgust he felt racing through his body mercilessly engulfing him from within. "I didn't deserve this..." he sniveled, and he couldn't stop a wail from climbing up his throat and escaping though his bloody lips as fresh tears spilled down his blood-stained face.

"Orihara-san, are you all right?” Kasuka blurted as he burst through the door, only to stop in his tracks when he saw Izaya leaning against the sink looking as though he was ready to pass out at any moment, the man's dark red gaze slanted his way reminding him of a wounded animal, though to describe him as just a wounded animal was an understatement, because while he could tell that a large amount of blood was gushing from the stab wound in the right leg, the rest of it was coming from between the man’s legs. “You have to call the police,” he said softly.

"I won't!" Izaya rushed to answer in a voice sounding pathetic even to his own ears.

"Then I will," Kasuka said with determination.

Bitter laughter welled up from deep within and Izaya allowed it to spill past his bloody lips. “Trust me; you of all people don’t w-want the police involved."

A chill ran down Kasuka’s spine as a terrifying thought emerged and took root into his mind at the man's both scornful and resentful tone. “What do you―“

“Help me get into the tub,” Izaya ordered and then struggled to take those two steps towards it with the help of the beast's brother, all the while wondering if Kasuka had succeeded in figuring out the meaning behind his cryptic words. He almost wanted Kasuka to know because the beast didn't deserve anyone thinking of him as a good person when he clearly wasn't one. Heiwajima Shizuo was an absolute monster, the many wounds littering his body serving as a testimony to that fact.

His jaw stiffened in apprehension when he tried to lift his right leg to get into the tub, but that proved to be more difficult than he had imagined when pain shot up his spine and almost sent him tumbling head first into the wall, the only thing stopping him from such a terrible fate being the firm grip Kasuka had on him. He crawled more than he stepped in, but he couldn't be bothered to care because he was finally where he wanted to be and nothing else mattered besides getting rid of Shizuo’s disgusting seed and the tobacco smell. His wounds stung terribly everywhere they came in contact with the water and he soon learned that he lacked the energy to even move a finger let alone wash, especially when his vision was quickly tunneling into darkness.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?” Kasuka asked again.

Izaya weakly nodded, his voice hardly above a whisper. “I'm sure.”

”There must be someone I can call. Please, Orihara-san, you're dying,” Kasuka insisted. He was almost certain that Izaya would end up bleeding to death before the night was over if the man didn't get any help.

Izaya pondered the question for a few moments and then whispered a name and a code just before he allowed both his body and his mind to finally succumb to the much awaited state of unconsciousness.

Kasuka rushed to Izaya’s discarded clothes the second he heard the name, immediately recognizing it as belonging to the doctor both his brother and Izaya were friends with. He didn't know the number though, so he hurriedly rummaged through the pockets of Izaya's bloody clothes until he found the phone, typed in the code to unlock it and searched the man's contacts until he found the number belonging to one Kishitani Shinra.

"Why are you calling me this late at night? Don't you know what ti―"

“Orihara-san needs your help. He has lost a lot of blood and I don't think he will last the night if he doesn't get help soon. We're at his apartment, please hurry," Kasuka said and then ended the call before the underground doctor even had a chance to say a word. With that taken care of, he placed the phone on the sink and leaned against the wall. His eyes slowly drifted to Izaya's bloodied face, the disturbing thought from earlier refusing to give him any peace. Judging by the injuries, Izaya had been brutally raped, which was surprising considering how the man was known for being nearly impossible to catch, but that only served to further prove that whoever had succeeded in doing such a thing was a formidable foe. The whole situation somehow unsettled him more than he wanted to admit, and no matter how much he wished to leave, he knew that he had no choice but to wait and make sure that Izaya wouldn't drown until Shinra arrived.

* * *

Kishitani Shinra was used to getting strange calls from Izaya, but he never expected to hear someone else's voice through one of the man's many phones, especially when he knew how possessive the Information Broker was when it came to those devices. Startled by the whole thing, he put the phone down, worry etched into his face.

Celty immediately noticed the man's expression shift from annoyed to outright perturbed, so she turned the TV off, got up from her spot on the couch and slowly approached him. [What’s wrong?] she asked, hoping that it wasn't something serious.

“I just got a strange phone call,” he said after reading the text his beloved Celty typed on her PDA.

[From whom?]

“I have no idea. I’m sorry, but I don't have time to talk right now. Can you help me gather a few medical supplies?” he asked before he picked up the phone again and called a cab.

[Of course! What do you need?]

"Put these in a proper container," Shinra requested after picking up a few O type blood bags for the transfusion. He always had a few of those hanging around because he was used to getting surprise visits from either Shizuo or Izaya. The two of them rarely bothered to visit unless they needed something, so when they did show up at his apartment it was usually because they needed him to patch up their wounds. He had no idea how many bags he would actually need, or if he would need any to begin with, but it was better to be safe than sorry. If it turned out that it was nothing more than a prank call from Izaya, he planned to beat up the bastard senseless and then make him pay for the visit. Slightly annoyed by that thought, he picked up a medium-size bag from the closet, shoved inside some other things he thought he might need and then turned his attention back to Celty who seemed to be done as well.

[Do you want me to come with you?] she offered as she handed him the blood transportation container.

“I'd love to take you with me, my dear Celty, but I need you here in case I forgot to bring something with me. I’ll call you soon." With a wave of his hand he stormed out of the apartment, seriously hoping that it was just a prank because he didn't want to have to treat an almost dying Izaya.

He ended up paying the cab driver double the sum just to convince him to get there faster, and as soon as the car stopped in front of the apartment building he quickly got out of it and rushed to the elevator, impatiently tapping a foot against the floor until the door opened with a cling and he sprinted out of it, the blood trail leading to the man's apartment making him think that perhaps it hadn't been a prank call after all. “Izaya, are you in there? Open the door!” he nearly shouted. The door swished as it was quickly opened and Shinra's eyes went wide when he finally realized who had been the one to call him. "Kasuka, why are you―"

"Please hurry, we'll talk about this later; at the moment, there's no time to waste," he pleaded, urging the doctor to follow him inside.

Shinra nodded and followed the man up the stairs and towards the bathroom, the sight meeting his grey eyes when Kasuka opened the door instantly getting burned into his retina. It wasn’t just anyone lying in a bathtub with crimson water, but someone whom he could go as far as to call a friend. Izaya was lying with his head resting on the edge of the tub, unconscious, his right arm hanging limply over the side with the wrist twisted at an odd angle while the man's ashen skin was a heavy contrast to the crimson blood covering a large part of his face. "Did your brother do this...?" he couldn't help but ask, Kasuka's presence further strengthening his belief that it was Shizuo's doing.

Kasuka shook his head, trying to convince himself more than anyone else that his brother couldn't have possibly been the one to do such a thing. "I found him on the street and brought him here. I don't know what happened."

Shinra nodded and approached the tub to check Izaya's vitals. He felt a pang in his chest when he saw the injuries up close and he let out a sigh of relief the moment he confirmed that the man was still alive. "Put some towels on the bed and then bring one here," he instructed, his eyes never leaving Izaya's unconscious form for the whole two minutes it took Kasuka to come back. He held the towel while Kasuka pulled Izaya out of the tub and then the both of them carried the Informant to the bedroom and gently laid him on the bed. Shinra would've preferred to take him back to his place, but he doubted the man would survive long enough to even get there.

"Wipe his head with this," he told Kasuka after retrieving a towel from one of Izaya's drawers and then watched him for a moment to see if the man was doing it right before he got up and went to get some blood to pump into the ghostly pale body. He put on a set of surgical gloves and picked up one of the bags, feeling a bit frustrated that he didn't have an I.V. pole to hang it from. "Hold this," he said just as he thrust the bag into Kasuka's left hand before he inserted the needle into a vein beneath the skin of Izaya's left arm. He then retrieved the blood bag and improvised a way to hang it from the headboard, all the while feeling annoyed that he had wasted too much time setting the whole thing up.

With that out of the way, he proceeded to inspect Izaya for life-threatening injuries. The first thing he noticed was the deep cut on the man's leg and he immediately concluded that it needed to get stitched up before the Informant would lose any more blood than he already had. Judging by its depth, the knife had to have hit bone, but it didn't look like it cut through any major artery. At that moment, Shinra couldn't help but wonder who held such a grudge against Izaya to want to hurt him so badly. It wasn't just the stab wound in the leg that spoke of a vicious attack, but also what looked like the beginning of many bruises littering the once unmarred skin, especially the ones on Izaya’s face―like someone had covered his mouth to keep him quiet―as well as the reddish bruise in the form of a large palm imprinted on the man's left hip. Shinra’s face turned grim at a particular terrifying thought, the blood pooling between the unconscious man's legs soon confirming his theory. “Did you know he was..."

"Yes. He told me to leave, but I was worried he'd die if I left him alone so I came back and that's when I saw him. I saw the blood," Kasuka said, his eyes roaming over the motionless form as he felt some pity for the man. He didn't care much for anyone in general, least of all for an enemy of his brother, but the thought of what Izaya had gone through disturbed even his usually emotionless self. "Will he live?" Regardless of how much of a bastard Orihara Izaya was, Kasuka still hoped for a positive response.

"I hope so," Shinra answered honestly and went to get a few more things from his bag. Turning around, he locked eyes with Kasuka. "Can you give us some privacy?" If there was one thing Shinra knew, it was that Izaya would not appreciate him taking care of the more 'delicate' injuries while in the presence of Shizuo's brother.

"Of course," Kasuka answered a bit too quickly. The whole thing was too much to bear and he needed to get away from there.

Shinra watched Kasuka leave before he turned his attention back to the patient. If he survived, the man would most likely hate him just for knowing what had happened, but Shinra didn't care as long as Izaya lived. He knew rape to be devastating for the victim, but for someone like Izaya it would most likely be worse because the Informant thought of himself as an untouchable god when he was in fact just another human. "I'm sorry, Izaya," he told his unconscious friend before he steeled himself to check just how badly the man had gotten torn as a result of the savage assault.

On the lower floor of the apartment, Kasuka kept pacing the living room, his earlier thoughts still not giving him peace. What if Shizuo... No, he would never. He couldn't have... but what if…? He couldn't stop thinking about it and he was feeling somewhat disturbed by his own thoughts. Staring blankly ahead, he told himself that his brother would never do such a thing, that Shizuo was a good man who wouldn't assault another person in such a manner, even if said person happened to be Orihara Izaya. After a while, he felt exhaustion weighing him down, so he sat down on the couch and stayed there alone with only his thoughts as unwanted company for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually he heard Shinra open and then softly close the door behind him and he patiently waited for the man to come downstairs, the look on the doctor's face telling him that Izaya was still alive.

"I really wanted to take him to the hospital so that he could get proper treatment, but I'm sure he would've killed me had I done so." The doctor was feeling a bit faint after seeing the full extent of Izaya's injuries, and that wasn't something he ever wanted to witness again.

"I offered to take him to a hospital, but he refused."

"Sounds just like him," Shinra mused, very much aware that his brittle smile was betraying just how upset he was about the whole thing.

Kasuka hoped that he hadn't been too late in getting help. "Will he be all right?"

Shinra looked pensive for a few moments, his eyes looking unfocused before finally settling on Kasuka's blank face. "I don't know about that, but he'll live. You really don't know what happened?" At that point, he was hoping for anything that could lead him to the culprit.

"I'm sorry, I don't."

Shinra made a sound of disappointment before he took off his glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I see. You've been of great help, thank you. I'll take care of him now, so you can go home and get some rest if you want. I'm sure you have a busy schedule tomorrow," he said while forcing a smile on his face. "He would be dead now if it weren't for you," he then added as an afterthought.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

"You saved his life; that's all that matters," Shinra said and led him to the door. "Thank you again."

Kasuka nodded and walked out the door, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't visit a certain someone.

Chapter 4: Once Upon Atrocity

Heiwajima Shizuo had been labeled as many things during his lifetime: monster, beast, brute, protozoan, freak, as well as many other nicknames people had given him over the years, but none of them were anywhere near as terrible as the appalling title of rapist. The thought hit him when he got home and he started to undress in order to take a shower. His body grew cold at the sight of Izaya's blood staining his clothes: blood from the injuries he had inflicted on the man's head after repeatedly slamming it into the ground, from the pale slender thigh he'd thrusted the switchblade into with absolute cruelty, from fucking him so viciously into the ground that he ended up tearing his insides just so that he could hear more of those agonizing cries.

He hated Izaya so much that he hadn't been able to stop himself from doing it. It was as though he'd been possessed by something much worse than the monster that usually took over whenever he got angry. This new monster relished the thought of inflicting pain, it loved seeing Izaya powerless, unable to escape his grasp, and each time his prey had tried to stay quiet, the monster would only ram into him harder, wanting to hear more agonizing screams.

That had been then though, back when he was still drowning in hatred and fury, but he no longer felt the same way. He simply stood there, naked inside the bathroom, staring at the bloody clothes thrown into the dirty clothes bin while his stomach roiled with sickening intensity as images of the ferocious assault viciously flooded his mind. He had raped the louse for god's sake. It was sick. He was sick. A shiver ran down his spine. Shit! How could I―

There was a knock on the door then and the sound almost made him jump out of his skin. He grabbed the bathrobe with a trembling hand and pulled it on, all the while trying not to think of Izaya's blood still covering some parts of his body. It felt disgusting to walk around like that, but he had no choice when the person who was looking for him kept knocking instead of giving up and leaving. Cursing under his breath, he walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom before he crossed the small hallway and the living room so that he could open the door, immediately freezing in his tracks when he heard the voice behind it.

"Nii-san, open the door!"

Shizuo's whole body shuddered in alarm because the thought of his little brother finding out about the horrible things he had done to Izaya scared him more than anything in the world. 

"I know you're there, so please open the door before I use the key you gave me," Kasuka threatened.

Shizuo broke into a cold sweat. "I'm coming," he finally answered in a trembling voice and reluctantly dragged his body towards the door.

Kasuka waited patiently outside. He was still hoping that his assumption had been wrong and that Shizuo was not the one who had assaulted Izaya. His brother was the easiest person to read, which was why he was almost too afraid to see the man's face because he would instantly know if he was guilty or not. The lock clicked and the door slowly opened, revealing Shizuo's startled face, and that's when Kasuka knew that his brother had done it.

"Why are you here?" The question was asked in an unsteady voice and Shizuo feared that Kasuka might be able to tell that something was wrong. After the shitty day he'd had, Kasuka was the last person in the world he wanted to see, especially after the note he had gotten from him earlier that morning.

"I have something to talk to you about, please let me in."

Shizuo's knees almost buckled, the thought of having a conversation with Kasuka while he was still covered in Izaya's blood making him feel faint. He had to get rid of him. "I was about to take a shower..." he tried and hoped that Kasuka would understand and come back another time, even though he wasn't sure that he would ever get the courage to face him again even if he came back. He felt too ashamed at having disappointed him once again after promising to do everything in his power to not get fired from his job at the bar.

Kasuka's already half-closed eyes infinitesimally narrowed. "Nii-san, let me in now," he demanded and then pushed the door, the thing opening with almost no resistance at all as though Shizuo's muscles had suddenly turned to jelly. He immediately noticed the blood smudges on Shizuo's hands but said nothing, first wanting to properly assess the situation before making any accusations. Tearing his eyes away from what was most likely Izaya's blood, he walked inside and sat down on the couch. Shizuo followed behind him like a lost puppy, all the while avoiding his eyes as though he was too ashamed to face him. "Sit down, nii-san," he ordered and patted the spot beside him.

Shizuo's body jolted in shock and he suddenly felt colder than ever, as though he was nothing more than a corpse, still moving around because he was cursed, doomed to forever roam the Earth as atonement for his sins against Izaya. Such a filthy creature had no right to be anywhere near someone like his little brother, and yet he had no choice but to sit down.

Kasuka looked him up and down, analyzing him with a critical eye. Although the man was wearing a bathrobe, he couldn't hide the blood smudges on his face, hands and collarbone, which meant that Shizuo hadn't lied when he said that he was about to take a shower. That, along with the slumped shoulders and the adamant refusal to meet his eyes was all the proof he needed.

"Why are you here?" Shizuo asked again, this time in a strained voice.

"I sometimes take walks by myself when it rains because there aren't many people on the streets and I can move around without being recognized."

"You shouldn't do that. It's dangerous. You could get hurt. There are some really sick people out there," Shizuo scolded him, clenching his fists tighter. Like me.

Deciding there was no point in dragging it on, Kasuka cut straight to the subject. "I ran into Orihara-san earlier," he ruthlessly dropped the bomb.

Shizuo's entire body shook and his heart sped up to an insane rhythm inside his rib cage, the noise so loud that he could hardly hear himself think. Body nearly vibrating with dread, he raised his head and locked eyes with Kasuka even though he knew that his little brother would read the shame and panic in them. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out, as though the connection between his brain and his vocal cords had suddenly been severed.

"He was badly injured; he almost died, but you already know that, don't you, nii-san?"

Shizuo felt the world starting to spin around him as the memory of brutally assaulting Izaya and then leaving him to bleed to death in a filthy alley almost made him throw up right then and there. He was a terrible human being... no, not a human being, a monster, just an animal deserving a slow and painful death.

"Right, nii-san?" Kasuka continued in a tone that was just as emotionless as ever. "Nii-san...?"

Shizuo couldn't hear anymore, his heart slamming itself so viciously against his rib cage that he thought it would rip right through his chest. He simply couldn't stand the idea of Kasuka being disgusted by him. Out of nowhere, he felt something touch his shoulder and he abruptly lashed out without thinking, his body acting on instinct as a result of the too many fights he had been forced into over the years. When some semblance of sanity came back to him he was pinning Kasuka against the coffee table, one hand around the slender neck and the other around his brother's right wrist. He couldn't move, let alone think of a way to fix whatever the hell it was that he was doing. To make things worse, it felt as though an invisible fist was gripping his heart and squeezing it without mercy as punishment for attacking his little brother. Struck by shock, he just stared, Kasuka's calm expression only serving to further increase his distress. Those seemingly emotionless eyes always brought out the worst in him, as though his little brother's general lack of reaction somehow fueled his anger.

Kasuka lightly brushed Shizuo's cheek with his free hand, the despair his older brother exuded bringing unwanted pain to his heart. "Nii-san, calm down," he spoke in a tone much softer than his usual monotone one.

Shizuo nuzzled into the touch despite the feeling of it burning his skin like molten lava. He swallowed the lump in his throat but still didn't let go, afraid that Kasuka would leave and that he would never be able to see him again. He loved his little brother more than anything in the world, and he knew that he would be crushed if Kasuka decided that he'd had enough and walked out the door without ever looking back. Not that he could ever blame him if he decided to erase him from his life. Shizuo knew that he was a monster and that sooner or later he would end up breaking the people he loved. Thinking that it would be best if Kasuka hated him, he tightened his fingers around the pale neck, not missing the way in which his little brother stiffened at the gesture. "Now you know, Kasuka, now you know what kind of monster I am," he said through clenched teeth and swallowed hard, dejection lacing his words. Of course his little brother knew, and Shizuo was certain that Kasuka not only despised him but that he was also afraid of him.

Meanwhile, Kasuka kept gazing into the tumultuous honey-brown eyes while trying to figure out what was going on inside Shizuo's head. He knew better than anyone how much his brother hated violence, so he couldn't understand why Shizuo had gone so far as to rape Izaya. He didn't even remember his sibling ever expressing any interest towards the same sex, so it was puzzling that he would sexually assault a man, unless he had completely lost himself to his anger, more so than ever before, in which case he could've done it as a way to destroy Izaya. The rush he might've felt at finally capturing the person he hated the most in the world could've drove him to it. Even so, it was too much even for Shizuo. "You're not a monster, nii-san," he spoke softly even though he knew that what Shizuo had done was truly monstrous.

"I am! Can't you see that?!" Shizuo shouted in despair, his left hand slamming down on the coffee table near the right side of Kasuka's head as though he was trying to prove just how much of a monster he was; and yet he couldn't find it in himself to drum up the needed ruthlessness to chase his little brother away from his apartment and consequently from his life. "These bloody hands that are pinning you down right now did the same thing to that accursed louse! You... you can't even imagine what I did to him, how I hurt him, how much I enjoyed it! What if I lose it and I hurt you?" he blurted out, his voice faltering as he fought to breathe. "What if I lose it and I―"

"I'm not Orihara Izaya," Kasuka spoke calmly, unfazed by the earlier display of violence. If Shizuo thought that he could scare him into running away, then his older brother had another thing coming, especially when Kasuka couldn't remember a time when he had ever been hurt by him.

"So what?! I'm still a monster!" Shizuo growled out the words.

"You're not going to hurt me, nii-san," Kasuka stated with absolute certainty.

"How can you be so sure about that?!"

"Because I know you. I'm not here to judge you; I only want to help you." Kasuka's voice had been soft, and he raised his hand to touch Shizuo's wan face for a few moments before moving it upwards and running his fingers though tousled blonde hair, his eyes unwillingly being drawn to the blood smudge just below the stiff jaw. How could you do such a thing, he thought sadly, the grip on his throat finally relaxing after what felt like an eternity. Taking it as a sign to continue, he looked him straight in the eyes. "Please, nii-san, let me help you."

Shizuo nearly wept as he heard those words come out of his little brother's mouth, Kasuka's gentle touches swiftly putting out the fire that was his anger. Overwhelmed by the unconditional love, he removed his hand from around Kasuka's neck and slumped backwards on the couch, strong hands going up and tugging at his hair in despair. "How could I do that to him? How could I enjoy seeing him cry while I was... while I was... I deserve to die! " he cried out, voice cracking towards the end. He felt Kasuka pull him into a hug and he tried to draw back, but hands that held startling strength tightened around his torso and refused to let go. Trapped, he shuddered in the tight embrace, hating himself for tainting Kasuka with his cursed existence. I don't deserve this! I don't deserve him! 

Chapter 5: The Image of Pain

Tom knew that something was wrong with Shizuo the moment he saw him, the man's rigid posture and the dark circles under his eye serving as a clear indication that something was bothering his friend. That wasn't what got his attention though, because while Shizuo did look much tenser than usual, it was nowhere near as surprising as the normal clothes the man was wearing instead of the usual bartender uniform. He was tempted to inquire about the reason for the change, but he had a feeling that Shizuo would not appreciate it so instead he remained silent and tried to send him home. "Hey, if you want, you can take the day off, you know that."

"I'm fine, let's go," was Shizuo's swift answer. He was not in the mood to go home where he'd have nothing to distract him from his own condemning thoughts.

Tom wasn't happy with the answer, but he didn't think that pushing his Shizuo would do any good so he merely shrugged before they went on with their work. Shizuo barely acknowledged his presence after that, the man only waking up from wherever his mind was wandering just enough to shake an indebted guy into paying before retreating into his head and ignoring everyone and everything until it was time to once again put his strength to good use.

"Go home," Tom finally ordered, sighing, the cigarette burning his friend's fingers telling him that Shizuo had forgotten he even had it in his hand to begin with. He expected the man to protest again, but to his surprise, Shizuo muttered an "I'll see you tomorrow" and left. Tom could do nothing but stare at the man's retreating back with a puzzled look on his face.

Shizuo couldn't take his mind off of what had transpired the night before no matter how hard he tried. A feeling of constant nausea settled in his stomach and an echo of Izaya's cries of agony constantly rang in his ears as a grim reminder of what he had done. He felt so mentally and physically drained that he was having a hard time getting his legs to move, his feet mostly scuffing aimlessly across the pavement and somehow leading him to a park. He sank heavily on the nearest bench and he closed his eyes, the sun's deceptively warm rays biting into his already cold skin.

He had been so out of it after his discussion with Kasuka that he didn't even remember his little brother leaving, the events of the previous night stopping from registering in his mind around the time Kasuka hugged him. The next thing he remembered was waking up on the couch when the alarm had gone off, his body still carrying the evidence of his assault on Izaya. Disgusted by himself more than by Izaya's blood, he dashed to the bathroom, dropped to his knees and threw up, his body so weak that he barely had the energy to get up and take a shower. He was nothing more than an animal, someone who didn't deserve kindness from anyone, especially from someone as nice as Kasuka. Just thinking about his brother made his heart ache. He knew that Kasuka cared about him, but to go so far as to not abandon him after what he'd done to Izaya... Kasuka had to be a saint; it was the only reasonable explanation.

His eyelids felt heavy as he tried to open his eyes, so he blinked a few times and shook his head in an attempt to wake up. His nicotine deprived lungs screamed for a cigarette, so he thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants and pulled out the lighter and an almost empty pack, sucking in the smoke the second he lit it up. Without meaning to, his thoughts went back to the previous night and he immediately hated himself for his inability to keep them at bay. It was as though he could still feel Izaya struggling under him, screaming in pain, squeezing him so deliciously tight each time he thrust into him...

Fuck, he cursed, too shocked by his own train of thoughts. That feeling of nausea burning through the pit of his stomach suddenly intensified and it shocked him to even think that he had enjoyed it. Sure, Izaya was an evil little creep, but not even the damn louse deserved to get humiliated in such a way, even though at the time his crazed mind had seen it as the perfect punishment. It was only after it happened and their eyes locked that Shizuo had truly become aware of what he'd done. He remembered his heated and sated body suddenly going cold, the look of absolute terror in the Izaya's eyes making the blood in his veins freeze. No one should have that look in their eyes, not even Orihara Izaya, he remembered thinking, the memory alone making his hands shake with fine tremors. 

He lifted the cigarette to inhale some much needed smoke and then stopped, the memory of burning Izaya with one making him gag. Revulsion suddenly filled his senses and he hurled it to the ground before he raised his foot and furiously crushed it under the sole of his shoe. "We're even," his own words echoed in his mind and he leaned forward, quivering fingers tugging at his hair in self-loathing. He could not understand for the life of him why he had said it, the words having left his mouth before he even had a chance to process them.

It was true that Izaya had ruined his life by getting him fired from a few jobs in the past, or by pinning crimes on him so that he could get arrested and even going as far as to try to get him killed, but he still shouldn't have raped him. He was supposed to be better than that. The only comfort he had was that Izaya was still alive and he couldn't help but wonder how the man was doing. According to Kasuka, Izaya had almost died, and the thought of almost killing another person―even if said person was only a bastard louse―made him hate himself even more.

If it hadn't been for his little brother, Shizuo would most likely be in jail for rape, homicide and probably torture too. Something had to be seriously wrong with him to do such a despicable thing as leaving a bleeding Izaya alone in that alley. Then again, he hadn't exactly been thinking clearly back then and perhaps that was the problem. Somewhere, in some remote corner of his mind, he had assumed that Izaya would simply get up and limp home, because no matter how much he had tried to break him, the bastard's wouldn't break.

His body tensed then, the thought that he might still end up in jail passing through his mind. There was nothing stopping Izaya from informing the police about what had happened to him, but at the same time Shizuo doubted that the man would want something like that to be known by others; the insect was a proud bastard after all. His mind kept torturing him with images from his encounter with Izaya as he sat there, and because of that he didn't even notice anyone getting close until someone was in his face and he had to squint his eyes in order to see who it was. Aghast by the sight, he abruptly jerked backwards, his face turning a ghostly pale. His ears were ringing so loudly that the sound was almost deafening, so it felt like an eternity had passed before a voice finally succeeded in slicing through his addled thoughts.

"―our brother?"

"W-what?" Shizuo asked in a strained voice.

"Iza-nii, today?" Kururi shyly inquired.

Shizuo tried to swallow the lump in his throat with not much success; it felt as though he was slowly suffocating.

"Oh well, I'm sure he's alright, he always is," Mairu chirped.

"Y-Yeah," Shizuo stuttered. "What a-are you d-doing here?"

"We heard that Hanejima Yuuhei is filming somewhere nearby, so we came here hoping to see him," the younger of the twins said in an excited voice before her smile fell and she pouted. "When are you going to introduce him to us?"

"Soon, but not today, sorry. I have to go, see ya," Shizuo said and got up, desperately wanting to get away from them.

"I'm going to kill Iza-nii and dump his body inside a dumpster one of these days, so don't forget your promise!" she added.

Shizuo felt his heart sink, her innocent words told as a joke cruelly tearing into him. It didn't look like they had any idea about what had happened to Izaya, and the simple thought of being anywhere near the twins after viciously raping their brother made his guilt increase tenfold. "We'll talk about that another time," he told them and then walked away with hurried steps, their mere presence making him uncomfortable because of how much they looked like Izaya. As that thought entered his mind, he winced and nearly threw up right there and then, but he kept on walking until he was far enough away from the twins. At least the fresh air was helping him with the nausea.

He only stopped when he could go no further and he leaned against a wall where he remained like that for a while, completely drained and hoping that his racing heart would stop galloping. After a while, he found the strength to push himself away from the wall and get his legs to move in the direction of his apartment, but all he could think about was how Izaya was doing. He even thought he caught sight of the insect at some point when he saw a fur-trimmed coat out of the corner of his eye, but on closer inspection he confirmed that it wasn't him. Of course it's not him, Izaya is probably unconscious, he told himself as he remembered the large puddle of blood he saw under the man after he'd had his way with him, the memory of leaving him there like that and walking away further increasing his feelings of self-loathing.

The rest of the way to his apartment was a blur, dark thoughts bombarding him every step of the way. He mechanically pulled out the keys from his pocket and opened the door, not even bothering to lock it behind him before he sluggishly moved towards the couch and slumped on it, head falling into his hands in despair. He hated violence, yet he ended up inflicting the worst kind of violence on Izaya. The flea was a douchebag―there was no denying it―and some part of him still believed that Izaya deserved what happened to him, but it was a tiny part of him. Even so, it was still a part of him, and that truly scared Shizuo because he couldn't help but wonder if he had always been such a monster. Perhaps the monster Shizuo was the real Shizuo, and the other part of himself that claimed to hate violence was nothing more than a lie. The hands in his hair tightened, teeth grinding harder against each other. He simply did not know what to do anymore.

He didn't move for a few hours from his spot on the couch, not until he heard a knock on the door followed by Kasuka's voice and he reluctantly forced himself to get up and open it after forgetting he hadn't even locked it to begin with. "What do you want?" he asked, both annoyed and exhausted and most certainly not in the mood to talk to anyone. Their previous conversation hadn't exactly gone well and the last thing he wanted was to end up losing it again.

"For starters, let me in," Kasuka demanded calmly, not at all intimidated by the hostility flung at him.

Shizuo moved out of the way and allowed him to come in before going back and sitting down on his earlier spot on the couch. "What do you want now?"

"I came to see how you were feeling, so how are you feeling?"

A bitter chuckle slipped past Shizuo's lips because the question hurt him in ways that his little brother could never understand. "What kind of question is that?" he asked, his voice nearly cracking. "It's not like I was the one who got raped last night."

"That's not what―"

"It doesn't matter. Just tell me one thing. At the hospital, they said that Izaya was going to pull through, right?" The issue of Izaya's unknown fate had been eating at him for a while now; he needed to know how the insect was doing. Regardless of how much of a bastard the Informant was, Shizuo still hadn't been able to kill him. More than that, he didn't want the man to die after what had happened, even though he knew that Izaya would most certainly gradually break him for what he had done, until there would be nothing left of the man known as Heiwajima Shizuo.

Kasuka stared for a while at the miserable-looking creature that was his brother, feeling relief now that Shizuo was asking about the man because he didn't want to believe that his brother was a heartless human being who didn't even care whether someone he'd hurt lived or died. Besides, Kasuka himself was supposed to be the emotionless freak between them, not Shizuo. "I never took him to the hospital."

As the words reached his ears, Shizuo's hopeful expression morphed into one of confusion and he stared for a few moments before finally blinking. "Then where―"

"I took him to his apartment."

"What??" Shizuo nearly screeched as his eyes widened in disbelief. "And you left him there alone?! He lost a lot of blood... w-what if he's dead?" he hesitantly asked, heart pounding so fast inside his rib cage that it hurt.

"No, that's not what happened," Kasuka interjected and proceeded to explain. "I wanted to call an ambulance when I found him on the street but he didn't let me do it, so I offered to help him get home. At the time I had no idea about the full extent of his injuries, so I didn't think that it'd be a problem if I took him home."

Shizuo's hands were slightly shaking and he felt a surge of panic fill his entire being. "You took him there and then...?"

"He told me to leave after I helped him up the stairs and into the bathroom, but then I heard noises coming from inside so I rushed back in. I saw…" he started, but had to shake his head in order to get rid of the image of a very frightened and bleeding Orihara Izaya. "I saw the blood. There was so much of it running down his thighs... Nii-san, how could you do such a thing?"

Shizuo lowered his head again, a feeling of absolute shame taking over him as the silence stretched between them. He didn't know how to answer Kasuka's question when he himself had no idea how he could snap like that and sexually assault Izaya. He was planning to either beat him within an inch of his miserable life or to simply kill him, but the bastard's mocking words and that annoying laughter had made him lose it, a burning desire to crush the insect emerging from somewhere deep within. He'd already been in a shitty mood to begin with, so his mind was far from clear by the time he had caught the bastard. Then, somehow, in his messed up monstrous head he reached the conclusion that fucking the bastard would be the perfect punishment. It would show him just how weak and powerless he really was instead of the invincible god he believed himself to be. "I... I'm not really sure..." Shizuo finally answered in a completely defeated tone.

Kasuka almost felt guilty for posing the question, but he wanted to know and to understand. Unfortunately, it didn't look like Shizuo himself understood his own actions, which was to be expected. Feeling a bit bad about asking the question, he moved closer to Shizuo who seemed to be trembling. "I'm sorry," Kasuka said as he placed a hand on Shizuo's shoulder. "Like I said, I'm not here to judge you. I only want to understand so that I can help you. I know how much you hate violence."

"No, Kasuka... that's not it."

"What do you mean?"

Shizuo took a deep breath, struggling to find the courage to say the next few words. It wasn't something he was proud of. "I hate myself for what I did to the louse," he confessed, clenching his fists tighter, "but that doesn't change the fact that I enjoyed it."

Kasuka gave Shizuo's shoulder a squeeze. "But you feel bad about what happened, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm still a monster, and nothing I do now will ever change what I did to him."

"Monsters don't feel remorse, so you can't be one."

Shizuo turned his head and stared into Kasuka's eyes. He was grateful that his brother was still there for him and it was nice to know that he could always count on Kasuka to help him get through tough times. Besides, talking to him always seemed to help. "What happened to Izaya afterwards?"

"I called Shinra."

Shizuo breathed in relief, but then his entire body stiffened and his expression turned grim. "Does Shinra know that I was the one who... who... did that to Izaya?"

"No, he doesn't know, not yet anyway."

"G-Good," He was worried that Shinra might figure it out, and the simple thought of more people finding out about he'd done to Izaya made him break into a cold sweat. It was already bad enough that Kasuka knew. There was only so much he could take, and he didn't think that he'd be able to handle the hateful glares and the disappointment he would most likely read in his friends' eyes. Kasuka was already going out of his way to comfort him and that was more than he deserved. "You can let go now," he told him, his brittle smile most likely betraying his feelings. It didn't matter though, not when Kasuka could read him like an open book.

"What?"

Shizuo's eyes fell on Kasuka's hand on his shoulder. "You're not acting like yourself."

"Oh, right," Kasuka said and pulled back his hand. "I'm sorry, I was just―"

"Trying to comfort me, I know, but I'm all right now. You don't have to force yourself this much for me. I don't deserve a brother as good as you."

Kasuka gazed into the honey-colored eyes, the too many emotions behind them almost overwhelming for someone as emotionless as he was. "No matter what you do, I will always be on your side."

Shizuo's eyes widened in both confusion and disbelief and he stared into Kasuka's eyes in the hope of finding out if his brother was being truthful or if he was just telling him what he wanted to hear. "How can you even say that? What if one day I end up hurting you? Would you still be on my side?"

"Always on your side," Kasuka assured him, dead serious. To him, someone who could hardly feel anything, Shizuo was the person he most cared about. Only when he was around Shizuo he felt somewhat normal, like his coldness and emptiness would somehow mix with Shizuo's fire to create something in-between, something closer to normality. He knew that it sounded crazy, but it was what he thought and no one would ever be able to make him think differently. Shizuo smiled at him―a brittle smile―and Kasuka wished that he could make him understand just how human he was instead of the monster he believed himself to be.

Shizuo sighed in frustration. "Ugh, I need a cigarette."

"Do you want me to go buy you a pack?"

"No!" Shizuo rushed to answer, his outburst startling Kasuka in the process. Embarrassed, he ran a twitchy hand through his hair. "I'm sorry." 

"Since when did you quit smoking?"

"I didn't."

"Then what is the problem?"

"I... I can't stand seeing it burn anymore," he disclosed in an irritated tone.

"Why?"

Shizuo tensed, unsure whether or not to reveal more of the fucked up things he'd done to Izaya. No matter what Kasuka had said, his brother probably still saw him as a monster, but he deserved to know the truth. "I burned the flea with one. It's like I can still smell his flesh burning and it's making me sick," he finally said, his face turning pale.

Kasuka remained silent for a while, analyzing the information and processing it for future reference. The fact that Shizuo couldn't even smoke anymore proved just how affected he was by the things he'd done. Then again, even Kasuka himself had felt somewhat affected by the sight of a very naked, very bleeding and utterly terrified Orihara Izaya.

"I think I need to get drunk," Shizuo mumbled before he got up and went to retrieve a bottle of whiskey from one of the kitchen cabinets.

Kasuka looked at the bottle, then at Shizuo. "Since when do you drink whiskey?"

"I don't. Tom picked it up from a guy who couldn't pay his debts," Shizuo said and poured himself a glass. He noticed Kasuka looking at the bottle with an indescribable expression and he wondered what was going through Kasuka's complicated mind. He saw him reach for the bottle and his eyes widened a bit. "You don't drink," he said in a high-pitched tone, immediately regretting opening his mouth.

Kasuka gave him a blank stare. "Neither do you," he responded flatly as he poured himself a glass. "There's a first time for everything."

They drank in companionable silence until they finished the bottle together, which didn't take very long. That one bottle however was not enough to make Shizuo as drunk as he wanted to get, so he offered to go out and buy some more alcohol. To his surprise, Kasuka agreed. His sibling didn't show it, but Shizuo knew that what happened had somehow affected him as well. Besides, it wasn't the first time that Kasuka had to clean up his mess, but it was probably the first time his little brother had most likely realized just how sick Shizuo had to be in order to do such a cruel thing. He really did go buy more alcohol, but by the time he returned home with three bottles, Kasuka had fallen asleep. He took a blanket from the closet, draped it over him, picked up two of the sake bottles he had bought and then went to his room to drink some more. He got drunk that night.

Chapter 6: Revelations

As a doctor, Shinra was used to witnessing the aftermath of violence, but there was something eerie about seeing Izaya in such a horrible state and he couldn't help but wonder who could have done such a thing to someone who was anything but weak. Not even Shizuo had been able to catch Izaya, so Shinra had no doubts that whoever had succeeded in capturing and doing such a thing to Izaya was an extremely dangerous individual. His eyes wandered to the fluid sample he had salvaged from Izaya's body and he hoped that it would help him find the culprit even though he couldn't be sure that it would be of any use after Izaya did something as stupid as taking a bath.

He wondered then if perhaps Izaya might know who the man was because normal people didn't usually stand a chance to even get near the Informant, so unless Izaya had been somehow ambushed, which was unlikely, then he'd been sexually assaulted by a person he knew and perhaps that was why the man had tried to wash away the evidence. Then again, Izaya could've simply been disgusted enough to want to take a bath regardless of the consequences. Whatever the reason, Shinra made up his mind to do everything in his power to help Izaya as much as he could, starting by not telling the man just how close he had come to dying the night before.

He checked in on him one more time to see how he was doing and then went downstairs to wait for Celty. He still needed some things from home and Celty seemed more than eager to bring them over. Maybe she just doesn't like being alone, he thought excitedly and then berated himself for thinking with his dick while Izaya was still fighting for his life. It had to have been a big blow to Izaya's ego for someone as strong and confident as he was to be humiliated and hurt in such a cruel manner. Even Shinra felt sick at the mere thought of it, but luckily he ended up getting distracted by a knock on the door and he rushed to let his future wife in. She didn't know that yet, but Shinra was certain that one day it would happen.

[How is he doing?] Celty inquired after she placed the bag on the coffee table and took the PDA out of her pocket.

"He'll live, but he's hurt pretty badly."

[What happened?]

Shinra disliked hiding things from his beloved, but he knew that it wasn't right for him to reveal anything without Izaya's consent. "I'm sorry," he finally spoke in a voice laced with guilt. "The only thing I can tell you is that it will take a while for him to recover." Physically at least, because there was no guarantee he would ever be able to mentally recover from it. For the first time in his life, Shinra felt sorry for another human being. By normal standards, Izaya was a terrible person, but that had never really bothered him. On the other hand, Shinra himself had no right to judge others when he was no better himself, not when he had no love for humanity and he only saw other people as potential subjects for his experiments.

The exceptions were Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo, even though he would've loved to study Shizuo because the man was an interesting specimen. He sighed and regarded Celty with unease, knowing that she was still hoping for an explanation. Luckily, her phone rang and she had to leave, but not before letting him know that she would be back. 

As soon as she was out the door he went back to Izaya's room, not expecting to see the man struggling to get up. It only took him a moment to get over his initial shock and rush to the man's side to immobilize him since the last thing Izaya needed was to further aggravate his injuries. To Shinra's dismay, instead of making things better, he was making them worse, Izaya's pleas to be released bringing a most unwanted pang to the doctor's chest. "Please calm down, it's me, Shinra," he tried, hoping that Izaya would somehow hear him.

"S-stop!" Izaya begged while violently thrashing on the bed, bangs sticking to his sweaty forehead and eyes scrunched tightly in agony.

Shinra knew that Izaya would eventually stop struggling, but that didn't make him feel any better as long as he was pinning him to the bed. "It's me, Shinra, I won't hurt you, please stop struggling," he kept repeating, hoping that Izaya would eventually hear him, but the Informant obviously wasn't because he kept mumbling nonsensical things and flailing about like a bird trapped inside a cage. Normally, Shinra would've been able to keep himself emotionally detached when dealing with patients, but it didn't seem to be working very well in Izaya's case, especially when the thrashing kept dragging on for what felt like an eternity before the man finally ran out of energy. The whole thing had been terrible and Shinra breathed in relief as he slumped on the nearest available surface which happened to be a chair, hoping that he wouldn't have to ever do something like that again. He was so exhausted from staying awake the night before that he ended up dozing off, only to wake up later from a nudge to his shoulder.

[Go get some rest, I'll watch over him,] Celty told him when she came back in the evening.

"Don't worry about it."

[I insist.]

"Let me check on him first; then we'll talk again," Shinra said and got up to see how his patient was doing. Izaya's condition didn't seem to have changed during the time he had fallen asleep, but Shinra was grateful to Celty nonetheless for waking him up, especially when he was feeling guilty for taking a nap instead of watching over his patient. He was still very tired though, so tired that he didn't even sense her move closer until she was right behind him.

[That looks terrible! Who did this to him?]

"I don't know, but I'm hoping to find out soon. On a completely unrelated note, I believe that I am in dire need of some coffee, so let's leave Izaya to rest," he suggested in the hope that Celty would stop asking questions. He kept his breath as she stood there looking tense and then breathed out in relief when she nodded, both of them leaving the room and heading for the kitchen. The Informant wasn't the nicest person around, but Shinra didn't think that Izaya deserved such a thing happening to him. If only he knew who the bastard was, he'd sic Celty on him. The doctor was certain that the Dullahan would have no problem heeding his request even though she wasn't Izaya's biggest fan. Thoughts of revenge filled his head and he imagined the many ways in which he could perform a vivisection on Izaya's assailant, but he was awoken from his dark fantasies when Celty shoved a coffee mug in his face.

[There you go.]

Shinra blinked. "When did you―"

[While you were spacing out.]

He looked up at her from his chair and smiled while thinking just how lucky he was to have such a wonderful woman as his friend and hopefully one day as his wife. Their fingers brushed when he moved for the cup and he couldn't wait for the day when he'd be able to hold her in his arms without having to suffer bodily harm; Celty was obviously not easy to win over. He took a sip of coffee and sighed in contentment. He was grateful to Celty for having taken his mind off the vicious ways in which he was planning to torture the rapist. "Hey, Celty, who do you think has the power to hurt Izaya in this city?"

Celty folded her arms in front of her chest and tilted her helmet, looking pensive for a moment before she started pacing the kitchen for a few minutes while trying to find an answer to Shinra's question. Finally, when it looked like she had reached a conclusion, she walked back to Shinra, typed something, and showed him her answer. [There are not many people who would be able to hurt Izaya, but if I were to name those few who could, they would be the following: Shizuo, Simon and perhaps a few people from the Awakusu-kai.]

Shinra crossed Shizuo and Simon off the list, which left him with the Awakusu-kai, but he couldn't understand why they would do such a thing if they had indeed been the ones responsible for what happened to Izaya. Then again, it was possible that Izaya had incurred their wrath by selling information to their enemies; the man was certainly capable of something like that. Sighing, Shinra raised the mug and pressed it to his lips with the intention of taking another sip, but his eyes narrowed in frustration when he realized that the coffee was gone. "I'll go check on Izaya."

[I'm coming with you.]

"I suggest you stay here, unless you want to see Izaya naked," he said and got up, feeling slightly amused by the way in which her posture stiffened almost instantly. If Celty had her head, Shinra was certain that she would've turned beet red at his words, but since she did not have one, all he could do was observe her body language and deduce from there.

With Celty out of the way, he turned around and went back to Izaya's room. It wasn't like he really wanted her out of the way, but the circumstances were of such nature that he preferred she stayed out of it. He approached the bed, checked his patient's vitals and then breathed out in relief, feeling confident in his assertion that Izaya would pull through. The Informant was still pale, but not nearly as pale as when Shinra had found him in the bathtub. That had given him one hell of a scare and he was glad that he'd succeeded in saving the man's life. Izaya was the first human Shinra found interesting enough to try to form a connection with, which is why he'd jumped in front of an incoming knife attack to protect Izaya back when they were both still in middle school―that plus he'd wanted to impress Celty. Truth be told, he saw all humans as objects for his studies, but there was something about Izaya which set him apart from the rest.

There was also Shizuo, but the man defied all laws of nature, so Shinra couldn't exactly lump him in with the rest. Shizuo was the other person that Shinra somewhat saw as a friend, and even though the man's banter with Izaya was amusing at times, he would've preferred to not see them trying to kill each other every chance they got. His eyes drifted over to Izaya lying motionless on the bed and he cringed at the sight of all those bruises covering the frail body. The man liked to believe he was indestructible, but Shinra knew better. It was a miracle that Izaya was still alive after all the fights he'd gotten into over the years. He was about to go back to Celty when Izaya opened his eyes, the pained, yet at the same time intense hateful gaze directed his way completely startling him. He stood there, stock still, wondering if perhaps his patient would once again be delirious, but before he even had a chance to say a word Izaya opened his mouth and spoke.

"I will crush you," Izaya promised in a weak but determined voice.

So he's still delirious, thought Shinra, at the same time wondering how he could use that to his advantage even thought he knew it was immoral. Well, there was something he could try. "Who am I?" he asked and immediately moved to immobilize Izaya when the man tried to get up again. "Shhh, calm down, it's me Shinra. I'm the only one here."

"I'll destroy you!" Izaya vowed while still trying to get up, his voice louder than before. "L-Let go!" he added, much weaker this time.

Shinra felt his heart clench. He knew that Izaya had to be terrified to be trembling as much as he was. "I can't give you any more painkillers or sedatives, please calm down," he tried, but it didn't look like Izaya was listening to him since the man's struggles were only getting worse.

"Bastard! Monster! Stupid protozoan, I hate you!" Izaya screamed, his mind getting bombarded by images of the beast who had assaulted him.

Shinra froze in shock at the familiar nicknames, his heart suddenly accelerating to a painful speed. It can't be... Trembling, he released Izaya's arms and went to get something that'd knock the man unconscious because he had somewhere to go and he couldn't allow Celty to hear any of the things Izaya was saying in his delirious state. He would have to make sure that she never found out about it if it turned out to be true; if she did, she would suffer greatly. Sparing Izaya one last glance, he walked out of the bedroom and headed towards Celty to let her know that he had something to do and to also ask her to look after the Informant while he was away.

He called a cab the moment he was out the door and then rushed the driver to speed up to his apartment to pick up something and then to the hospital. His acquaintance, a doctor working there, would permit him to use the lab to run the test. He didn't spend time talking and instead ran inside, holding tightly onto the vials and hoping that they provided the answer to the question eating at him. He was really hoping that Shizuo had not been the one to do it. With trembling hands he opened the door and rushed straight to the machine needed to compare the samples he had taken from Ikebukuro's beast over the years and the fluids he'd recovered from within Izaya's body. He almost dropped the vial in the process, his body going cold at the thought of Shizuo doing something like that to Izaya or anyone else for that matter. He paced around the lab for what felt like an eternity before he finally got the result, his eyes narrowing into murderous slits and his body starting to heat up because of the anger he felt coursing though his veins when he read that the samples were a match.

He staggered to the nearest chair and sat down, his knees feeling so weak that he feared they might buckle under him. He stayed like that for a few minutes, fists clenched so tightly that the nails were painfully digging into his skin. He wasn't feeling the pain though, not when his mind was filled with many dark thoughts on how to punish Shizuo for what the monster had done. The moment he was confident that he could walk again he rushed out the door and took a cab back to Shinjuku, his first priority being to check up on Izaya. Celty greeted him as soon as he got back but he tensed at the sight of her, hating himself for keeping even more secrets from her, the only comfort being that it was for her own good. He turned his attention to Izaya and he sighed in relief, glad to see that nothing had happened while he'd been away.

Celty approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder, his haunted expression telling her that something was wrong. [You were gone a long time. Where were you?]

“I lost track of time. I’m sorry,” he said as he covered Celty's hand with his own. It wasn't enough though, so he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a hug, the coldness of her black shadowy smoke as he lowered his cheek on her shoulder somewhat lessening the rage he felt boiling within him. She tried to push him away but he only held on tighter, desperate for her soothing presence. “Please let me stay like this for a while,” he begged brokenly.

Celty stiffened in his embrace, his grief-stricken voice telling her that something was indeed wrong. She tried to pry herself away from his hold once again, but she eventually gave up and raised her arms to return the hug when he refused to let go.

“I really need this right now,” he pleaded in a frustrated voice, hoping that Celty would understand.

She patted his back in a reassuring manner and wondered what could have upset the usually calm Kishitani Shinra.

“Thank you,” he said after a while just as he loosened his hold on her before he moved to sit on the chair next to the bed. The sight of a broken Izaya hurt more than he thought it would and he couldn't understand how Shizuo could do such a thing. He would've never thought him capable of such an atrocity. Shizuo had plenty of reasons to beat Izaya up, but to jump from a beating to rape was too much. It was wrong on too many levels, and the man's anger issues were no excuse for what he'd done. Shinra's hands balled into fists and he gritted his teeth harder, feeling upset that he couldn't do more for Izaya. That night he watched over him together with Celty until morning came and he went to see Shizuo.

He was one step away from strangling the man to death by the time he reached Shizuo's apartment, but at the same time he was extremely nervous because he now understood that messing with Heiwajima Shizuo was a lot more dangerous than he had ever imagined. The blond would most likely not do to him the same thing he had done to Izaya, but that didn't mean that Shizuo wouldn't kill him without batting an eyelash. He knocked on the door a few times―his hands were trembling a lot more than he was expecting―and then tried the door bell when no one answered, hoping that Shizuo was home so that he could look him in the eyes and tell him what a monster he was. He waited for any sign of life, and after what felt like an eternity, the man finally opened the door.

"Shinra," Shizuo said, sounding really surprised, "what are you doing here?"

Shinra nearly bit his tongue in an attempt to keep silent about Izaya for just a bit longer. He didn't want to alert Shizuo that something was wrong until he was inside the apartment. "I want to talk to you about something," he said, all the while struggling to not let the hatred he felt for the man seep into his voice. "Why do you look so surprised?" he continued, a little bit startled himself after seeing the look of guilt on the monster's face.

Shizuo awkwardly scratched the back of his head and moved out of the way to let him in. "I thought Kasuka forgot something. We stayed up late last night and when I woke up this morning I found a note from him saying that he had to leave for work. I must've dozed off again after reading it. Anyway, what do you want to talk about?"

Shinra listened to Shizuo talk and the man's tired voice made him think that the blond must've gone to sleep really late the previous night. His eyes wandered to the empty alcohol bottles and he had to admit that he was surprised to see alcohol anywhere near Shizuo; the man didn't usually drink as far as he knew. Then again, he really could've just been celebrating his victory over Izaya. He felt his whole body tremble at the mere thought of anyone rejoicing after doing something like that to another person and he barely succeeded in stopping himself from attacking Shizuo. He knew that a direct confrontation with such a dangerous monster was a bad idea, so instead he decided to play nice for the moment. "What's with the distillery? Did something happen?"

Shizuo stiffened, his face burning in shame over what he had done. He knew very well that the doctor cared about Izaya in his own messed up way, but he couldn't understand why he'd visit him unless the flea had woken up and told him who had attacked him but he somehow doubted that Izaya would ever admit to having been defeated by his most hated enemy. "I just needed a drink, bad day at work," he answered before he turned around and started to clean up a bit. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know how Izaya is doing..."

Shinra's eyes narrowed into slits and he couldn't help but glare at the man. "Why do you ask?"

Shizuo turned to him and gave him a weak smile. "Kasuka told me that he found him hurt, and that he helped him get home. I was just... I was just wondering, you know?"

"I thought you'd be celebrating at the news instead of asking me how he's doing."

Shizuo laughed nervously and turned around again, his posture all rigid. "Yeah, you're right. It's just the flea, why should I care?"

Because you raped him, you goddam son of a bitch, thought a seething Shinra as he pulled out a syringe from the right pocket of his lab coat and thrust it into Shizuo's neck before the man even had a chance to react. The monster fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes and Shinra's heavy boot immediately descended on the blond's windpipe when the monster tried to get up. "This here is enough to incapacitate even you," Shinra informed him as he waved around the syringe before he threw it hard into a wall, "but not enough to knock you out."

"What is this abou―" Shizuo tried to ask, but the boot pushed harder into his throat.

"How could you?" Shinra hissed.

"H-how did you―"

Shinra scoffed, actually feeling insulted by the question. "It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out," he finally answered and pressed his boot harder into the neck he could so easily snap.

"I l-lost it!" Shizuo said even as the boot was crushing his windpipe. "I'm sorry," he then continued in a pleading tone, knowing that he had royally fucked up.

"It's not me you should be apologizing to," Shinra hissed and removed his foot from Shizuo's throat. He was safe now; the man couldn't attack him with the amount of etorphine shot into his bloodstream. Most people would've lost consciousness, but he knew that Shizuo wouldn't because the man was a freak of nature and Shinra wanted to have a chat with him without risking his own life in the process. "I've always thought you were a good person even though Izaya kept telling me otherwise, but now I know better," he hissed in a venomous tone and felt some sort of twisted satisfaction when Shizuo closed his eyes as a sign of guilty admission. "How would you feel if you had to patch up your friend's torn anus? I bet you wouldn't like that, would you, but that's what I had to do because of you." He shoved a hand into his left pocket and pulled out a small vial. "I had this analyzed, and that’s how I know for a fact that it was you," he said and then released his hold on it, the glass shattering the moment it hit the floor. "If you come anywhere near Izaya again, I will kill you."

"I'm sorry," was all Shizuo could say as Shinra turned around and left the apartment. "I'm sorry," he said again, because Izaya was not the only person who ended up getting hurt because of him. I'm so sorry, Shinra.

Chapter 7: Bone-Chilling Reality

Rough hands grabbing his arm in a tight grip.

Fingers in his hair pushing his head into the wet and cold concrete.

The horrible sounds of pleasure resonating in his ears from above him.

That thing thrusting into him so mercilessly.

How long has it been?

One minute?

One hour?

An eternity?

Would it ever be over?

If only he could get away...

.

.

.

.

.

"Stop!" he shrilled in despair, eyelids as heavy as iron fluttering open as his frantic mind desperately sought an escape from the nightmare plaguing him, his psyche unable to cope any longer with the perpetual humiliating state of complete helplessness he felt at the hands of Ikebukuro's beast as he repeatedly relived his ordeal. It wasn't just his body that Shizuo was breaking, but also his mind, and when Izaya wholly opened his eyes he was blinded by the light. Everything seemed too bright and too loud after so much darkness, or perhaps he was only getting that impression because of the ringing in his ears, but he couldn't be sure. He kept blinking a few times until the image started to clear, the white fading, and when he heard a voice he felt his entire body go cold, the shape of someone coming closer freezing the blood in his veins. 

No! No more! Not again! Not again! he screamed inside his head, terrified. A sob escaped his sore throat and he was overcome with nausea, immediately raising a hand to cover his mouth as a result of the intense abhorrence he felt welling up inside of him, his quivering body giving away the fear he felt seeping through his veins.

Abruptly, that someone stopped and Izaya kept his eyes glued to the shape, waiting for any indication that it'd move. It didn't, and as the image slowly started to clear, he was able to finally identify the person who was trying to talk to him.

"Please, Izaya, calm down, you're safe here."

"Shin...ra?" Izaya asked softly, fearing that it was only an illusion.

"Yes, it's me, your best-est friend Shinra. Aren't you so very happy to see me?" the doctor tried in a cheerful tone, hoping to lighten the heavy atmosphere. Izaya would most likely hate him for all of eternity if he dared to show him any pity and it broke Shinra's heart to see the man so scared and beaten up, nothing about the person before him reminding him of the fearless Informant. Shinra couldn't remember ever seeing him looking so broken before, and he hated Shizuo even more for turning the strong Orihara Izaya into the pitiful creature before him who looked like it could get spooked by its own shadow. Unwillingly, his eyes drew back to the cigarette burn on Izaya's now black and blue neck, the bruises in the shape of fingers encompassing it making him regret not having crushed Shizuo's trachea when he had the chance.

Izaya's eyes widened when he saw how badly his hands were trembling and he ground his teeth harder in frustration. Feeling completely ashamed, he bowed his head and tucked his hands beneath his arms, hoping the doctor hadn't noticed. He was finally safe. He chuckled darkly.

"Izaya?" Shinra uttered, brows furrowed in confusion. "What are you―" he tried, but he never got to finish because Izaya broke into hysterical laughter, the man's left hand, which was now clenched in his hair, tugging at it, his eyes wide and unfocused. "Iza―"

"Leave!" Izaya managed to say between breaths that sounded like sobs. "Out! Get out!" he shouted in the hope that he would be left alone.

Shinra stood there stunned for a few moments before he snapped out of it and hurried out the door, unable to tell whether Izaya was laughing or crying. He waited outside, wincing at the sounds coming from the room and wondering if Izaya had lost his mind. If he did, he couldn't really blame him. He could only imagine how hard it must've been for someone as proud as Izaya to lose in such a debasing manner to his most hated enemy. The sounds did stop a few minutes later, but by then Shinra was unsure whether to go back inside or to leave Izaya alone for a while. If that would've been him in there, and god, it made him sick just to consider such a scenario, he too would've wanted to be left alone. Sighing, he gazed at the door one more time before he turned around and left.

Inside, Izaya was having troubles breathing again, his left hand still tightly clenched in his hair while he was staring at his broken and trembling right limb, his mind refusing to believe what it already knew. 

It's not real.

It never happened.

That would never happen to me.

And yet he knew that it had happened no matter how much he refused to believe it, the awful pain between his legs serving as a reminder of the torture he'd been subjected to by the beast. He slowly lowered his right hand and warily placed it upon the blanket, unable to tear his eyes away from it because of how much it shook with dread. He kept staring at it for a while until he finally found the courage to push the blanket away and he saw the bandages around his thigh. It wasn't as though the pain he was in didn't serve as proof that his ordeal had been real, but he needed that last visual confirmation to accept it.

He had been raped.

The great Orihara Izaya, who thought himself to be above humans, had been raped.

He could hardly believe it himself, and he was the victim.

Victim... such a foreign concept to him.

He had never been a victim before, at least not until Shizuo had plucked him from his special place in his metaphorical sky, where he thought he belonged, and flung him down to the ground with the rest of humanity. How could things go so wrong when he was merely taking a stroll through Ikebukuro for no particular reason?

It wasn't that running into Shizuo was something out of the ordinary, but he should have assumed that sooner or later the man would truly snap. Truth be told, he had always wanted to see Shizuo lose it completely, but never in his wildest dreams or nightmares did he imagine the brute capable of such an atrocity. He now understood that he'd played with fire and had gotten burned in the process; it was as simple as that. Now the question was how to put out that fire.

As much as he hated to remember, the events of that night were still as clear and vivid as they had been back then and he knew that he would've been dead if it hadn't been for Kasuka. It was ironic that the brother of the man who ruined him turned out to be his savior. The issue now was that Kasuka knew the truth and it infuriated Izaya to know that someone had seen him so weak. Kasuka aside, there was also Shinra. He knew that he shouldn't feel ashamed, but that still didn't make him feel any less mortified at the thought of his friend seeing and being forced to patch up every wound that Shizuo had inflicted on and inside his body.

He took a deep breath before he finally let go of his hair, his whole body feeling numb. He stared blankly at the wall with tired eyes, his shoulders sagged, drowning in self-pity until his injured body demanded he lay back down again. Feeling both physically and mentally exhausted, he allowed his mind to sink into the sluggishness and he floated between consciousness and unconsciousness for a long time until Shinra approached him cautiously after coming back to check up on him.

"I'm going to give you something for the pain, but first I need you to tell me how badly it hurts on a scale from one to ten."

More than you can imagine, thought Izaya, but he wasn't about to tell him that. "Six." Shinra handed him a couple of pills and a glass of water and Izaya greedily gulped down the liquid, his dry throat and lips in desperate need of hydration. "Thanks," he said as he handed him back the glass, only to glare in contempt at his still trembling hand.

"Don't worry about it," Shinra spoke softly, as if reading his mind, "you lost a large quantity of blood, so it's only natural."

Izaya nodded, thankful to the doctor for trying to give an explanation for it. He simply dreaded to think that the trembling in his hands was the effect of his fear and he refused to believe that he had been reduced to such a pathetic human. He tore his eyes away from his left hand and looked Shinra in the eyes, but felt like it was something much harder to do than before, especially when the man knew what had happened to him. "Hey Shinra," he uttered brokenly and then paused for a bit, the awful pain scratching at his consciousness breaking his focus. "I'm sorry."

Shinra felt his heart clench, Izaya's broken voice and overall posture making him feel really sorry for the man. "It's not your fault, so don't beat yourself over it." He was no longer capable of hiding his pity and he was certain that his brittle smile was telling Izaya exactly how he felt about the whole situation.

Izaya swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head. "No, listen, that's not it. What I meant to say is that I never wanted you to have to―"

"No, don't," Shinra cut him off, "I don't even want to hear you say it. I wanted to save you."

"I really am sorry," Izaya repeated and allowed himself to drift into unconsciousness, the pills having made him really sleepy. "I want to go home," he whispered softly right before he fell asleep.

"No can do; it was hard enough to bring you here to begin with, so I won't allow you to leave until you're out of danger," Shinra told him as he pulled the blanket higher up Izaya's body.

He sighed for the umpteenth time and walked out of the room, hating himself for being unable to do more to ease Izaya's suffering. He couldn't even make the physical pain go away and he was a doctor, so how could he ever hope to take away the man's mental anguish? It was impossible. Izaya would never forget what happened and Shinra was starting to worry that the Informant would further damage himself while trying to take revenge on Ikebukuro's beast. Oh, he knew that Shizuo absolutely deserved it, but he didn't want Izaya to completely break while trying to destroy the monster. Exhausted, he slumped on the kitchen chair and lowered his head on the table, wishing that none of it would've happened. Not only did one of his friends get broken, but the one who had broken him was none other than the other friend Shinra had. It was an extremely fucked up situation and Shinra couldn't stand seeing Izaya looking so human because it simply did not fit the image of the strong and confident man that Shinra had come to know.

Chapter 8: Snakes of Despair

Izaya spent the next few days in bed, not even talking to Shinra unless the man asked him if he wanted more painkillers. What was worse than the pain was the constant feeling of nausea settled in his stomach. Coming to terms with what happened was really hard for Izaya, so a part of him was still in denial even though he knew it to be true. Whenever he tried to sleep he would wake up in a sweat, his whole body shivering in pure terror as the events of that night kept plaguing his every waking moment and dreams alike. When he was awake, he at least knew that it was all in the past, but in his nightmares he was only met with despair each time his mind unwillingly conjured the monster that was Heiwajima Shizuo. The Shizuo of his nightmares always caused him unbearable pain, not unlike the real one, but at least the real one was someplace else and Izaya knew that he was safe at Shinra's apartment.

Speaking of Shinra, he couldn't have been more grateful to the man for everything he'd done for him. Not only did Shinra save his life, but he also took care of him even though he had no obligation to do so. Celty sometimes hovered outside the door, but she didn't dare disturb him and Izaya could only assume that it was curiosity on her part, her general dislike of him being no secret. Then again, he couldn't help but wonder if she would still feel the same way if she knew what her precious Shizuo had done. Probably not, but he had no intention of telling her anything. It was already bad enough that Shinra and the bastard's brother knew. Out of all the people who could've found him that night, it just had to be Shizuo's brother, as though the forces of the universe were doing their best to screw him over. His depressing thoughts were however interrupted when Shinra entered the room with a plate of food in his hand.

"I brought you some fatty tuna," Shinra chirped and pushed the plate into Izaya's face. "Here, take a bite," he insisted, but Izaya simply turned his head away in disgust. "Why do you refuse to eat?" the doctor finally asked when he figured that Izaya had no intention whatsoever to eat the delicacy that Shinra had bought specially for him.

"I'm not hungry," Izaya answered in a disturbingly apathetic voice.

"You're going to get sick if you don't eat anything," Shinra whined, brows furrowed in both anger and concern while he waited for his patient to say something. "Izaya? Are you even listening to me?" he finally asked when he realized that the man was either ignoring him or was too lost inside his mind to notice anything around him.

Izaya raised his head, tired bloodshot eyes staring at his doctor and friend. "What...? Oh, I'm sorry, my mind was someplace else. What were you saying?"

"I said that you're going to get sick if you keep refusing to eat!" Shinra snapped, tempted to pick a piece of fatty tuna and force if down his stubborn patient's throat.

Izaya gazed for a while at Shinra with a blank expression on his face. "I'll be fine," he finally answered and hoped that he'd be left alone.

"I can't fix stupidity you know," Shinra complained and sighed in exasperation. "What do you hope to accomplish by starving yourself to death?"

Izaya didn't answer the question and instead lowered his head back on the pillow, clearly dismissing Shinra from his presence.

"Fine, have it your way, but don't you dare come to me for help once you'll start feeling sick," Shinra threatened just before he slammed the door behind him a bit too hard.

[What's wrong?] Celty asked when she saw an annoyed Shinra stomping into the kitchen.

"That idiot doesn't want to eat! His body needs energy to recover, yet he refuses any food I bring him," he hissed through clenched teeth and nearly threw the plate of fatty tuna down on the table.

[Perhaps he's feeling sick and he can't eat.]

"Well, yes, but he has no reason to feel sick. It's his favorite food," Shinra muttered and sat at the table with his arms folded in front of his chest.

[I'm no expert in the process of feeding, but from what I've observed, some humans tend to not eat when they are feeling depressed.]

Shinra flinched at Celty's observation and the realization that Izaya might not be able to eat because of what happened to him made him feel guilty for snapping at the man. "Thank you, my dear Celty, you opened my eyes to something I failed to see before," he sang and kissed her hand gently. Celty immediately pulled it back and he knew that if she had a head on her shoulders, her cheeks would've flushed in embarrassment. It was cute how such a creature could be so shy sometimes. He loved everything about her, regardless of the fact that she was not human, or perhaps especially because of it. Now knowing what he had to do, he picked up a few things and went back to Izaya, determined to help the man regardless of his patient's opinions on the matter.

"What are you doing?" Izaya asked when Shinra grabbed him, brows furrowing in both anger and apprehension as he glared daggers at the man holding his wrist in a vice grip.

"Doing you a favor," the doctor chirped and only held on tighter when Izaya tried to free his hand.

"What the hell, Shinra?!" Izaya snarled when he saw the needle in the doctor's other hand.

"PPN."

"What does that mean?" Izaya asked through clenched teeth, still trying to free his hand.

Shinra raised his head and looked him in the eyes. "Peripheral parenteral nutrition."

"Intravenous feeding?!" Izaya asked in disbelief.

Shinra nodded before he proceeded with his task now that Izaya was no longer struggling.

"You're crazy," Izaya said and finally relaxed in Shinra's grasp. "You really are crazy."

"So it would seem, but that might only apply to the things I end up doing because of you," Shinra confessed as he forced a smile on his face.

"Well, you did throw yourself in front of a knife meant for me, so I guess it's safe to say that I'm special enough to make you do crazy things," Izaya mused, wearing a somewhat smug expression on his face. "What other crazy things would you do for― ouch! That hurts!" Izaya complained when the needle entered his vein none too gently. "What was that for?"

"Sorry, I just remembered something when you mentioned the crazy things I'd do for you." Once he was done setting up the whole thing, Shinra stepped away from Izaya who narrowed his eyes at him.

"What did you do?"

Shinra scratched his head in an awkward manner and then dragged a chair closer to Izaya's bed so that he could sit down and have an honest conversation with him. "I kind of threatened Shizuo," he confessed and lowered his head. "I know that he... I know, Izaya."

Izaya paled. "You! You crazy idiot!"

Shinra laughed nervously. "Sorry about that, but I couldn't help myself."

"How did you find out?" Izaya asked in a meek voice.

"I'm a doctor, it's what I do." Shinra said, but he immediately felt bad for even mentioning it when he noticed how badly Izaya was trembling. He inwardly cursed himself for his stupidity and got up to leave. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"It's fine," Izaya assured him. "I might not show it very often, but I'm grateful to have you as a friend."

Shinra couldn’t help but breathe in relief when he saw the small genuine smile on Izaya's face.

"What did... what did he say?" Izaya finally inquired in a shaky voice.

Shinra smirked. "He didn't get a chance to talk that much, not with my boot crushing his windpipe and all that."

Izaya's eyes widened in disbelief. "You really are insane!"

Shinra chuckled. "I won't deny that," he admitted before he left Izaya to rest, a small smile gracing his lips now that he finally got his friend to have a conversation with him. Perhaps Izaya might pull through after all, he thought with no small amount of hope.

[How did it go?] Celty asked as soon as he sat down next to her on the living-room couch.

"It went surprisingly well," Shinra told her, grinning.

[I'm glad to hear that. Izaya might be a horrible person, but that doesn't mean I want to see him suffer, or worse, die.]

"That's because you have a gentle nature, Celty," he said softly and placed a hand on her shoulder to reassure her when he felt her tense next to him.

[What if I cease to be the Celty you know once I find my head?]

"You don't have to find it. I love you just the way you are," he confessed as he rested his head on top of her shoulder. "You don't need your head, you're already perfect."

[But I still have to find it...]

Shinra didn't say anything to that and instead gently picked up her hand and placed it in his palm. If only Celty would give up the search and accept him, he was certain that he could make her happy. After all, she was the only one in the world whom he truly loved. "You don't have to, because you have me, and I would do anything for you. That's how much I love you," he told her and then wrapped an arm around her back. I would even lie to you just to make sure that you'd stay here with me until the day I die. That is how much I love you.

Chapter 9: The Pieces Don't Fit

With each passing day Izaya found himself wishing more and more to get away from Shinra. It wasn't that he was ungrateful, but enough was enough. Shinra was starting to treat him like he was made of glass, and even though the man was trying to act nonchalantly while in his presence, Izaya could see right through him.

"Please, you're not well enough yet, you can't go!" Shinra insisted, relentlessly hovering around his patient while Izaya put on some clothes he had previously grabbed from the doctor's closet.

"I can move now, which means that I'm well enough to get out of here," Izaya hissed and then shoved Shinra from his path when the man refused to move.

The doctor almost grabbed him by the arm to keep him there, but a glare from Izaya stopped him dead in his tracks. "You... you can't go," Shinra pleaded.

Izaya stopped and rubbed his temples, fighting to remain calm because he didn't want to say something he would end up regretting. "I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, but believe me when I say that I can take care of myself from now on," he told the doctor before he turned around and headed straight for the door. Shinra obviously wanted to say more, but the man had kept his mouth shut and Izaya was grateful for that because he was not in the mood to argue.

He would've ran had he been able to, but all he could do was gingerly walk and hope that he wouldn't attract too much attention. The world seemed foreign once he got outside the flat and for a terrifying second the idea that Shizuo could be somewhere nearby almost made him want to run back to Shinra's apartment. The fear was followed by shame and Izaya cursed under his breath before he forced his injured body to move forward. He grit his teeth when the pain made him break into a cold sweat and he tried not to think of the many injuries littering his body because of a certain Heiwajima Shizuo. It wasn't his behind alone that hurt, and god, it crushed his pride to smithereens just thinking about why it hurt, but there was also his stabbed leg and broken rib. It ached to breath, let alone move, but the desire to go home was stronger than any torment his body was in.

He checked his pocket for the money he’d snatched from Shinra's coat just before he left and he was glad to see that he had enough for a taxi. He sighed loudly but immediately regretted the action when the stabbing pain in his chest almost left him breathless. "Great, just great," he mumbled to himself. It'd take weeks or even months to heal all the injuries, which meant that he'd have to deal with the pain for a very long time. The pain wasn’t what bothered him the most though―he'd been hurt before, even though it was never as bad―but the memories of how he had gotten the injuries was what kept him awake at night. He shook his head in order to chase away the disturbing thoughts and then dragged his weak body towards the street where he knew he could easily find a taxi.

Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance to take too many steps before he ended up rooted on the spot when he thought he saw blonde hair out of the corner of his left eye. His broken right hand immediately went to his pocket and he almost panicked when he realized that he didn't have the switchblade with him. Suddenly, he felt more naked than he ever remembered feeling in his entire life. He reluctantly rotated his head in that direction and sighed in relief when he realized that he’d been wrong. It was then when it crossed Izaya's mind that he was way too jumpy, and maybe, just maybe, really freaking scared, but he would never admit that to anyone, not even to himself.

He took another deep breath and then continued to walk until he found a cab to take him to Shinjuku. Whenever the road turned bumpy, Izaya had to bite into his lower lip to keep himself from making any pained noises, and he was starting to think that perhaps Shinra had been right. He was aware that he wasn't well enough to leave, but that still hadn't stopped him from leaving because in order for him to be the Orihara Izaya from before, he had to go home and act like nothing had happened. So what if he’d been raped? People get raped every day and they still continue living, he told himself as a way of encouragement. If his beloved humans could do it, then so could he, especially when he―in his not-so-humble opinion―was above them. It would take some effort to climb back to the high place from where he'd been forcefully plucked, but he was Orihara Izaya and that was enough to make it happen.

When the car finally stopped in front of his apartment building, he got out and slowly made his way towards the elevator. He pressed the button to his floor with a shaky hand and he had to grab onto something to not collapse from exhaustion. He chuckled bitterly at how weak he was and then he breathed in relief when the elevator stopped. Black spots were starting to cloud his vision and he knew that if he didn't hurry he would end up collapsing before he managed to get inside his apartment. Summoning the last bit of strength he had left, he limped along the wall until he was in front of the door, which unfortunately took longer to open than he had expected. Once inside he only managed to take two steps before he ended up collapsing on the floor.

He moaned in anguish when his broken rib shifted inside his chest at the contact with the hard floor, and all he could do was lie there broken and hurting while waiting for unconsciousness to claim him. Unconsciousness was taking its time though and Izaya couldn't stand the idea of being sprawled on the cold floor again, just like that time in the alley. It felt like an eternity had passed before everything turned black and he almost welcomed the darkness because that was always better than remembering.

He woke up a few hours later to the sound of someone's voice, groaning in pain as he slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear his vision. "Namie?" he softly inquired, wanting to make sure that it was really her because he was still on his stomach and he didn't have enough energy to get up by himself.

"Who else? Will you get up already?" she snorted while tapping a foot on the floor next to Izaya's unmoving form. "It's irritating to see you lying there like that," she added before she went to drop a few files on her desk. "I have some things to take care of today, so I can't stay."

"Then go," Izaya sneered in a clearly annoyed tone while struggling to push his head off the floor. "Some help would be nice," he told her when the woman approached him.

She let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed him by the arm to help him up. "You don't pay me enough for this," she complained and released him as soon as Izaya was standing.

"Maybe I'm paying you too much," he mumbled and limped to the couch where he sat down.

Namie snorted at the remark.

"Aren't you glad to have me back?" he asked, smirking.

Namie rolled her eyes. "Ecstatic. Bye," and with that she slammed the door behind her, the loud noise making Izaya wince.

Other people might've been put off by her behavior, but it helped Izaya to know that she was treating him the same way she always had. His eyes darted around the apartment and he was relieved to see that someone had cleaned up the blood trail leading to the bathroom. He hoped the bathroom was also clean because he wasn't sure that he could walk in there and see all that blood without feeling sick. If he had to take a guess as to who was responsible for cleaning it up, he'd bet his money on Celty. Namie would never bother and Shinra had been too busy taking care of him to worry about some blood on the floor.

He closed his eyes and stayed like that on the couch for a while until he gathered enough energy to get up and go change into something more comfortable. He was anxious to get online to see if his people had noticed his absence. He had a feeling that some rumors about him being dead were already going around. He wasn't stupid though, he knew that Shinra had barely managed to save his life, but even that wouldn't have been possible if Kasuka hadn't found him that night, the irony of the beast's brother saving his life being somewhat amusing in a sick and twisted way.

He chuckled as he made his way to the laptop, but before he got to his desk, he did a one hundred and eighty degrees turn and went back to his room to grab a pillow so that his abused behind wouldn't hurt as much when he sat down in his office chair. Not that the chair wasn't comfortable, but his behind hurt that much. The cab ride had been hellish enough and he didn't want to go through something like that again anytime soon. After setting the pillow in place, he gingerly sat down and opened the laptop, realizing just how much he'd missed getting online. The first thing he did was go through his emails, but he ended up closing the window when he couldn't find anything interesting. With nothing else to do, he decided to check on the Dollars chat room.

 

―――Kanra has entered the chat room.―――

Tanaka Tarō: 【Do you really believe that?】

Kanra: 《What are you talking about?》

Tanaka Tarō: 【Good afternoon, Kanra-san.】

Kanra: 《Good afternoon!》

Bakyura: 「There's a rumor going around about Orihara Izaya.」

Kanra: 《Oh?》

Tanaka Tarō: 【Some people are saying that he got killed by Heiwajima Shizuo.】

Bakyura: 「I highly doubt that.」

Setton: [I agree. I'm sure he's fine.]

Kanra: 《Why is everyone suspecting Heiwajima Shizuo?》

Bakyura: 「He's been unusually quiet lately.」

Kanra: 《Quiet in what way?》

Setton: [Nothing got destroyed in the past week or so.]

Bakyura: 「Now that Kanra is here, this discussion is pointless and I have to go anyway. Bye.」

Kanra: 《Bye.》

Setton: [Bye.]

―――Bakyura has left the chat room.―――

Tanaka Tarō : 【If he really is dead, his corpse will show up eventually.】

Kanra: 《Scaaaary~》

Setton: [He's not dead!]

Indoor Scholar: 『Of course he isn't. Stop talking nonsense, people.』

Kanra: 《I also have to go. I'll talk to you guys later. Byeee~》

―――Kanra has left the chat room.―――

 

Izaya stared blankly at the screen for a few moments before he closed the lid and got up, his enthusiasm about getting online flying out the window.

So the beast is acting strange...

Something occurred to him then and he started laughing hysterically, occasionally stopping to gasp for air whenever the pain in his chest got too bad.

"Ah, Shizu-chan, you'd better not be regretting what you did to me! You're only a mindless beast after all," he said out loud as he walked over to the chessboard. "I can't rush this, I must find the perfect strategy to destroy you, because you're special." His hand hovered over the pieces and he tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I can't decide which piece you are, beast..."

He pulled back his broken hand and stood there motionless for a few minutes. "You can't be a knight, you're not honorable enough, nor are you a king, because you don't hide behind others." There was silence again for a while, until a terrifying smirk appeared on his face and he chuckled darkly as he raised his eyes from the board and gazed into the distance.

"You're none of those pieces, Shizu-chan, neither of us is! And because you dared to break my body, I will break your spirit in return! It will be glorious!" he said as he raised both arms in the air. "I will make you cry, beast!"

After a few moments of musing, he lowered his arms and went to sit back in his desk chair. "Even beasts can be broken, and I will break you!"

Chapter 10: Without Wings

It worried Izaya that sometimes he found himself missing the thrill of a chase, and the fact that there was any part of him missing anything related to the beast made him feel extremely disturbed. After some heavy thinking, he reasoned that it was because he couldn't stand how his body didn't allow him to do much besides slowly move around his apartment. For someone as active as he normally was, it was pure torture. To make things worse, he couldn't come up with the perfect way to take revenge on Shizuo.

Oh, he thought of a few ways to make him suffer, but none of them seemed good enough. Not poetic enough. He was in no rush though. It was best to leave Shizuo alone for a while, to make him believe that maybe, just maybe, he would be safe from his wrath. Then, when Shizuo would least expect it, to destroy him in the blink of an eye. After all, revenge is a meal best served cold, he kept telling himself. Unfortunately, it didn't make him feel any better.

"Stop it!" Namie snapped, startling Izaya badly enough to almost make him jump out of his seat.

"What?" he snapped back at her.

"You're sighing non-stop, it's distracting," she said, this time in a flat tone.

"I've been stuck in this apartment for the past three weeks, so excuse me for being bored out of my mind!"

Namie stared blankly at him for a while before she spoke in a cold voice. "My heart bleeds for you."

Izaya stared back at her. "An iceberg is warmer than you."

"Whatever, I'm done anyway," she muttered as she got up. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Do I have to?" he whined.

"Unfortunately for me, yes." She picked up her purse from the desk and started walking towards the door. She hesitated however when she pressed the handle. Instead of leaving, she turned around with a frown on her face. "Do you want me to bring you some fatty tuna tomorrow?" she asked, her voice uncertain.

Izaya blinked, a puzzled expression on his face. "Why do you ask?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Eh?"

Namie let out an exasperated sigh. "I've seen mummies looking better than you."

Izaya's cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "Namie-san is being really really mean today," he muttered, pouting.

"Just answer with either a yes or a no!"

"No, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside to know that you care!"

"As if! I just don't want to be bothered having to look for another job if you end up croaking."

"You speak such sweet words!"

Izaya chuckled when Namie opened the door and left the apartment without saying another word, but that didn't last long because he was once again alone, which meant that he could stop pretending. He pushed the laptop away and placed his head on the desk, feeling completely exhausted. As he sat there, it crossed his mind that it used to be much easier for him to pretend before the whole Shizuo thing. Just having to act like nothing was wrong in front of Namie was exhausting enough and he didn't want to imagine how much harder it would be to do it out there too.

His people knew him to be strong and confident, someone who could take on Ikubukuro's beast with a smile and laugh in the face of danger; or at least that's what he hoped they were still thinking. The rumors about him being dead were spreading like wildfire, and even though Izaya hated letting the rumors get out of hand, it was better than going out there on the streets in such a weakened state. As much as he loved his humans, he knew they were merciless and cruel creatures. The weaker you are, the more they want to destroy you.

Orihara Izaya could not afford the luxury of appearing weak.

He figured that it wasn't the actual chases around Ikebukuro that he was missing. No, what he was truly missing were the days when walking was easy, when he could eat food and enjoy it, but most of all he was missing a good night's sleep. When he was awake, he could somehow handle the memories, but during sleep he kept drowning in endless nightmares. It was frustrating how a part of him, a part he refused to even acknowledge, was still so terrified of the beast.

He was so tired that he barely had the energy to get up. He groaned and raised his head off the desk, his mind set on heading to bed even though it was still early. A month had passed since it happened and he was still having nightmares about it. It got to the point where he could only take a break from it all after passing out from exhaustion. Unfortunately, right at that moment he wasn't tired enough, but the bed was much more comfortable than the office chair. He slowly got to his feet and started dragging his tired body towards the stairs, only to stop in his tracks when he heard someone at the door.

It was unsettling, and the ominous sound of the doorbell made him feel uneasy. He didn't even care who it was, he wanted that person to leave, but they kept ringing and knocking until Izaya had no choice but to approach the door to see who it was.

"Open up, Orihara-san!" Izaya heard through the door when he was one step away from it. He cringed when he recognized the voice, and since opening the door was the last thing he wanted to do, he stood frozen on the spot for a few seconds, debating whether or not it was worth the risk of not letting the man in. He cringed harder when the man knocked again, and Izaya had to force himself to grab the handle and unlock the door.

"I knew the rumors were not true," Shiki stated calmly as though he was expecting to see the man alive and well.

Unable to hide his surprise at seeing not only Shiki, but Akabayashi and Aozaki too, Izaya's eyes widened in both fear and apprehension and he could only hope that his racing heart would stop hammering so loudly inside his chest. Until then, he had no choice but to try to put on a mask of indifference. "Of course, Shiki-san," he said and moved out of the way to let the three men inside.

"I've actually seen people betting on whether you'd turn up dead or alive," Shiki informed him while Aozaki snorted at the remark. "Don't mind him; he's upset that he lost the bet."

Izaya chuckled and moved farther into the apartment. "Please sit down," he said while motioning for the three Awakusu-Kai executives to sit on the couch. "What is the majority betting on?"

"That you got killed by Heiwajima Shizuo," Akabayashi answered while looking around the apartment.

"I almost feel offended," Izaya gasped playfully. "Do people have such a low opinion of me?"

"Yeah," Aozaki frowned. "Is that a problem?"

"Not at all," Izaya answered with a smile on his face even though on the inside he wanted nothing more than to crack open the man's skull. "Anyway, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" He heard Akabayashi snicker at his words, but the man seemed more interested in checking out the apartment than to hear him speak. Izaya didn't know why, but Akabayashi's cane always unsettled him, especially when he tended to drag it across the floor. For some reason, he couldn't tear his eyes away from it.

"I'll go straight to the subject," Shiki said, sounding serious. "We know for a fact that there are a few spies within the Awakusu-kai, and we need you to find them."

Izaya's eyes settled on Shiki's face before he let out a dramatic sigh. "Although I may not be dead, I am still injured, and as such, I will refrain from taking on any jobs at the moment." Akabayashi chuckled again, so Izaya turned towards the man with a somewhat annoyed expression on his face just in time to see the Awakusu-Kai executive getting dangerously close to his laptop. "Akabayashi-san!" Izaya called out in a sickly sweet voice, "could you please not touch my laptop? Thanks."

Akabayashi shrugged. "I was just looking, that's all."

"Look someplace else?" Izaya suggested, his voice hiding his annoyance quite well. He heard the man mutter something under his breath, but to his relief, Akabayashi moved away from the desk. With that out of the way, Izaya's attention went back to Shiki.

The corners of Shiki's mouth moved upwards into a disturbing smirk and Izaya almost recoiled at the look he was getting. "Orihara-san, I wasn't asking, I was ordering you."

"As if you could ever order me around," Izaya scoffed without thinking, already regretting it when he felt Aozaki's intimidating presence looming dangerously close behind him. Izaya might've been able to escape these three before, but there was no way he could do it when he barely had the energy to stand up. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he almost jumped out of his skin at the contact, disgust racing through his body. After what had happened with Shizuo, he could barely stand Shinra touching him, and now Aozaki's rough and cold hand was on his shoulder―the man’s pinky touching the curve of his neck―and it made Izaya's skin crawl so badly that he ended up shuddering despite himself. He slowly raised his eyes to look at the man's face and he knew then without a shadow of a doubt that Aozaki could see the weakness within him.

"Are you cold, Izaya-kun?" asked the Blue Demon of the Awakusu-Kai with a mocking smile on his face.

"I'm fine," Izaya hissed through gritted teeth as he tried to pry away his shoulder, only to fail in doing so when Aozaki tightened his grip so much that it hurt. "Let go!" he demanded, and the man had no choice but to release him when Shiki's voice cut through the tension.

"Aozaki, we're not here to fight."

"Tch!" was the only thing the man said before he pulled back his hand and moved somewhere to Izaya's right.

"It's a special request from Dougen-sama," continued Shiki, "I suggest you accept it."

Unfortunately, Izaya couldn't accept it. He was too busy trying to come up with the perfect punishment for Shizuo and he didn't have time to waste on some pathetic hoodlums. Besides, finding spies was never easy; it could take weeks, even months. "Not interested," he told them. What was the worst thing they could do, beat him to a bloody pulp? Nothing could be worse than what Shizuo had done to him, so a beating from the three executives would most likely feel like a walk in the park.

"Orihara-san," he heard Shiki growl and he nearly started laughing at seeing the great Awakusu-Kai executive losing his cool demeanor, "don't make me ask again."

"Like I said, I'm not interested," Izaya shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. "I couldn't care less what that old man wants from me. I have no obligation to help him."

"You tried using his niece for your little schemes, and now you have the obligation to redeem yourself somehow."

"It was only a harmless game."

"She could've gotten hurt." Shiki then got up. "This is the last time I'm asking you. Find the spies within the Awakusu-Kai!"

"No," Izaya snorted in a smug tone. "I couldn't care less about the old man's request. Besides, shouldn't he stop playing around and retire already? People his age should stay at home and spend time with their granddaughters instead of running an underground operation."

"How dare you?" Shiki hissed.

Izaya chuckled at their audacity. As if they could ever order him around like he was some sort of underling. No, it simply didn't work that way. "Get out of my house," he requested, smirking, "and tell Awakusu Dougen that I'm not one of his lap dogs to jump every time he issues a command. Although I might consider taking on the job in a few months, if I'll have enough free time and if he pays me well enough to make up for the horrible attitude you lot displayed today." He didn't even see Aozaki move, focused as he was on Shiki, and before he even had a chance to react, the man's fist collided with his rib cage so hard that he was sent flying across the room. He heard one or more ribs break with a sickening crunch and he gasped desperately for some much needed air. He only blinked once, and when he opened his eyes again, Aozaki was in his face.

"No one, no one insults Dougen-sama in my presence and gets away with it," Aozaki growled just before he grabbed Izaya by the front of his shirt to pull him up.

"Let. Go. Now!" Izaya demanded the moment he was able to speak again.

"You gotta give it to him, Aozaki, the man has guts," Akabayashi marveled while playing with one of the pieces from the chess board.

"Enough!" Shiki’s voice thundered before he approached both Izaya and Aozaki. He pulled out a piece of paper and shoved it into Izaya's pocket. "That's Slon's number, he'll help you out with this one."

"I'm not inte―"

"I said enough!" Shiki made it clear. "Aozaki, Akabayashi, let's go."

Aozaki seemed reluctant to let go, but he eventually did so, leaving Izaya to collapse on the floor in a heap.

"Tch! This bastard should be taught a lesson," Aozaki hissed as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants.

Akabayashi grinned and spun his cane around as he too slowly walked out of the apartment behind Aozaki. "Perhaps, but not today."

Izaya raised his head and glared at Shiki while the man kept staring down at him.

"We'll see you around," Shiki promised, finally, and left as well.

Chapter 11: Closer to the Edge

Izaya moaned in anguish but he struggled to get up anyway. He cried loudly next, the vicious pain in his chest making him double over in agony. He slowly walked to the desk, dangerously swaying with each step he took until he reached it and grabbed the phone to call Shinra. His hand tightened around it when the man didn't answer, but he tried to stay calm even though the pain was so bad that it almost brought tears to his eyes. He was starting to worry that one of the broken ribs might've grazed a lung, especially when he could feel a stabbing pain each time he took a breath. He lowered the phone and typed a message to Celty.

《I need you to come pick me up. 》

[Sorry, I can't, I'm busy at the moment.]

That was her answer, and for a moment it surprised Izaya that he felt bitterness after reading it. He called a taxi instead, picked up his phone, keys and jacket, and then walked out of the apartment. It hurt a lot, and yet he felt like laughing because he had ended up facing three strong men who could've hurt him a lot more had they wanted to and he’d succeeded in keeping his defiance until the end. It was good. He was good, Shizuo hadn’t really broken him as badly as he feared.

He swayed out of the elevator and slowly made his way outside where a taxi was already waiting for him. Luckily, the taxi driver was quite the observant person, so the man immediately got out and helped his passenger get inside the car.

"Thank you," Izaya said as soon as he found a good position which allowed him to somewhat breathe.

"No problem. Where to now?"

"Ikebukuro."

The driver started the car, carefully listening to the address Izaya gave him while the Informant struggled to speak without crying out in pain. He was a man in his fifties and Izaya was surprised to see there were still some nice people in the city who would help a complete stranger. There was, of course, the possibility that the man might've done it in the hope of getting some extra cash, but Izaya was grateful nonetheless. Humans truly were fascinating creatures. Once they arrived at Shinra's place, he paid the man a little extra for helping him out, got out of the car and went up to the apartment.

"Izaya!" Shinra gasped when he saw who was at his door.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?!" Izaya snapped and then gasped when fresh pain spread throughout his chest like wildfire.

Shinra grabbed him by the arm and helped him inside. "I was taking a shower! What happened?"

"I respectfully refused to take on a job," Izaya told him, chuckling, only to regret it when he almost collapsed in agony.

"It's not funny! Don't talk, don't laugh, don't even breathe!" Shinra ordered, worry seeping into his voice when he figured that whatever was wrong with Izaya had something to do with the man's ribs. He half-dragged the seriously injured man to the couch where he took the coat and t-shirt off before he proceeded to inspect the damage. "Stand still!"

"I'm trying, it hurts a lot, especially when you keep pressing on them," Izaya hissed.

Shinra gave him an annoyed glare. "How else am I to assess the damage?"

"I don't know!" Izaya screeched when a particular poke to his ribs made him want to punch the doctor in the face for causing him more pain.

Shinra grabbed him by the shoulder to keep him there, the man's squirming making his job a lot harder than it had to be. "Did you get hurt anywhere else?"

"No, only my chest ran into a fist," Izaya said, chuckling.

"You mean a fist ran into your chest," Shinra corrected him while rolling his eyes.

"Or that," Izaya said, grinning.

Shinra sighed. "You make such terrible jokes sometimes..."

"Tch!"

"Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news. Which ones do you want to hear first?"

"Give me the bad ones," Izaya chirped, "it's better to get that over with."

Shinra sighed tiredly. "The rib that had been broken before and that was starting to heal is broken again."

"What are the good news?" Izaya asked through gritted teeth.

Shinra laughed sheepishly. "It's just that one rib?"

Izaya shot him a nasty glare. "Are you sure that only one rib is broken?"

"Yeah."

"One hundred percent sure? It hurts a lot worse than it did last time."

"Yes I am sure. Trust me. Unlike you, I am a doctor."

This time Izaya rolled his eyes at the bad joke but didn't say anything else.

"Now, moving on to the next issue, can you tell me why you look like a skeleton? You promised that you would start eating if I left you alone, but look at you now! What happened?! Tell me!" Shinra demanded, his voice almost resembling a growl; that's how pissed he was about the whole thing.

Izaya winced at the loudness of the doctor's tone and then sighed, knowing that Shinra wouldn't leave him be unless he answered. Still, it was worth a try. "Can we talk about this later? I'm suffering here, remember? Pain?"

Shinra took out something from his pocket and dangled it in front of Izaya's face. "Answer my question and you get painkillers as a reward."

"Bastard," Izaya hissed at the sadistic doctor in front of him.

Shinra gave him a blank look. "In no way bigger than you, of that I am certain."

"I don't really want to talk about it," Izaya admitted so softly that Shinra had to strain his ears to hear him.

After a few moments of silence, Shinra grabbed his friend’s head and forced him to look into his eyes. "Tell me."

"Plea―"

"Izaya!" Shinra growled.

"Don't make me say it..."

"Just tell me already, please!"

"Okay, fine! Fine! It's just that it... it already hurts a lot, so it'd hurt so much more when... when the food has to come out, you know?" Izaya nearly whispered while wearing a pained expression on his face.

"Oh," Shinra exclaimed, his face set into a grimace. "Okay, but I am certain that I mentioned some things that could've helped, like brown rice, oats, beans, and a few others."

Izaya tried to look away, his face as red as a tomato, but Shinra didn't allow it.

"How about those ointments? Have you been using them?"

"Yes! Can we stop talking about my ass please?" Izaya nearly screeched.

"All right, fine, so what have you been eating?"

"Energy drinks, coffee, vegetables and fruit juice?" Izaya spoke softly, trying really hard not to look into the other man's eyes.

Izaya felt the hands on either side of his face tighten and he wondered just how badly he had pissed Shinra off. He found it ridiculous how the doctor could scare him more than the Yakuza with guns ever could, but that was one of the reasons the man was interesting enough to have been noticed by him in the first place.

After a long pause, Shinra took a deep breath before he let go of Izaya's head and finally spoke. "Okay, I won't lecture you. It's too late for that now, but you will start eating; doctor's orders."

Izaya knew he was sulking, but he didn't care anymore; he just wanted Shinra to stop talking about embarrassing stuff that made him want to disappear into the floor.

"Here," said the man as he handed him some painkillers and a glass of water. "I was on my way to buy something to eat when you showed up, so just sit here quietly for a while until I come back and then Celty and I will cook something and we'll eat dinner together."

"You want to poison me?! I'd rather starve to death than eat what Cel―"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence!" Shinra hissed.

"Fine, I'll wait," Izaya mumbled and grabbed the remote control to watch some TV while Shinra went to buy food.

* * *

―Thirty-seven minutes earlier, somewhere in Ikebukuro―

《I  need you to come pick me up. 》

[Sorry, I can't, I'm busy at the moment.]

"Who was that?" Shizuo asked when he saw Celty replying to a message.

[No one important.]

"If you gotta go, then go," he said with a shrug before he started walking away.

[You don't look so good, so I'm not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what's wrong.]

"I already told you. Nothing is wrong."

[Please tell me.]

"Some asshole grazed my arm with a knife. Maybe it got infected, I don't know," Shizuo mumbled as he gave Celty another shrug.

[That's serious! Come with me and let Shinra have a look at it!]

Shizuo realized that she was worried about him when some of the black smoke started seeping from underneath her helmet. "You're doing it again," Shizuo informed her.

[?]

"The smoke... people might see it."

She seemed flustered for a second, but once the smoke retracted she went back to nagging him about having Shinra take a look at the wound. It was pointless no matter what Celty said because the man had made it quite clear how much he despised him and Shizuo couldn't really blame him. He had known for years that the doctor was friends with Izaya, and even though it never really bothered him before―he wasn't that petty―he now knew that he had been the one to force Shinra to choose between the two of them.

The words Shinra had left him with that day still chilled him to the core and he could only imagine what it must've been like for the doctor to have to treat Izaya's wounds, the wounds that Shizuo himself had inflicted with so much twisted satisfaction. At least it didn’t look like Shinra had told Celty anything and for that he was grateful. He couldn't imagine what life would be like for him without Celty.

[Please come with me!]

He sighed but didn't say anything and instead kept on walking.

[Did something happen between you and Shinra?]

Shizuo stopped. "What makes you think that?"

[You haven't talked to or about each other in over a month.]

She's way too observant, Shizuo thought begrudgingly. "I've been busy, s'all," he mumbled and continued walking.

[I don't believe you!]

Shizuo grit his teeth in frustration, hoping that she would leave before he ended up accidentally revealing something he didn't want her to know. If there was someone he did not want to find out about what he’d done, that someone was Celty.

[Shizuo!]

"Look, we had a fall out, alright?" he snapped at her.

[What happened?]

Shizuo's eyes fell on the PDA and he ended up flinching when he read the question. "Can you please drop the subject?"

[Not until you either come with me or tell me what happened.]

"I'll go to a hospital later," he tried to assure her, but she was having none of that.

[Not acceptable. Come with me.]

Shizuo cursed under his breath, finally figuring out that Celty would never let it go if he didn't follow her to Shinra's apartment. Shinra hadn't told her anything, which meant that he also didn't want her to know, so he'd most likely play along if it was for Celty's sake. He sighed loudly. "Fine, let's go," he mumbled, and they both got on the bike, Shizuo spending the entire way there dreading meeting Shinra again.

[Here, take the key and go upstairs. I'm going to pick up Shinra.]

"What? He's not home?"

[He just sent me a message saying that he went to buy food. Just go.]

"Are you sure?" he asked, glaring at the key as though it would burn him if he were to so much as come in contact with it.

[I'm sure,] she said and placed the key into his palm.

Shizuo watched her leave before he reluctantly walked inside the apartment building. The mere prospect of seeing Shinra's face again almost made him want to turn tail, but he knew that once Celty set her mind on something there was no going back, which meant that in order for her to not find out about what he’d done to Izaya he had to face Shinra.

He didn't even realize when he’d gotten to the door, his mind bombarding him with horrible scenarios about how Shinra would react when he saw him, so he shook his head to chase them away and inserted the key into the lock before pushing the door open and walking inside.

For a moment, he thought he'd entered the wrong apartment when he saw someone sitting on the couch with his back turned to the sliding door between the living-room and the hallway and he almost took a step back in order to get out of there, but then he remembered that the key had opened the door, which meant that he was not in the wrong place after all.

"It was about time," said the man and Shizuo dropped the key when he recognized the voice.

Chapter 12: Insanity's Crescendo

"Can I get some better painkillers? The stuff you gave me is useless," Izaya continued, not yet realizing that Shinra was not the one inside the apartment with him.

Shizuo had never before found himself to be at such a loss for words. What could he say? It's me, Shizuo; oh, and by the way, I'm sorry I raped you?  Even if he were to apologize, to Izaya those would be nothing more than empty words.

"Shinra, are you liste―?" Izaya snapped and turned his head to glare at the man, only to lose his voice when he saw who was standing there in the living room with him.

Their eyes met and Shizuo saw Izaya's previous annoyed expression morph into one of pure terror, the same expression that Shizuo was so used to seeing on other people's faces but not on that of his archenemy. Before Shizuo could say a word, Izaya sprang to his feet and jumped away to the opposite side of the room. His eyes seemed to be frantically searching for something, and when it looked like he couldn't find what he was looking for, Shizuo saw him swing the hand he remembered breaking, which was now in a cast, straight towards the glass sliding door leading to the balcony, the loud sound as the glass hit the floor making him wince.

He watched Izaya crouch down to grab a piece of glass, those almost red eyes never leaving him even after the Informant got up and assumed a defensive position. It felt unnatural to see Izaya with that thing in his hand instead of the usual switchblade and the sight of the blood running down the skinny forearm from holding onto it too tightly made him wince once again. "Can we talk?" he tried, and he didn't miss Izaya's flinch when the man heard his voice. Izaya was in no shape to fight him, the nasty bruise starting to form on the pale chest clearly indicating that the man was hurt. That wasn't all though; Izaya's strength had always been his agility, which meant that he needed a lean body to do all the parkour, but he wasn't lean anymore, the once healthy-looking man being replaced by this malnourished thing with hollow cheeks and haunted eyes.

"Izaya, we need to―" he started, but in the next moment Izaya was upon him like a wild beast, his usual coordinated attacks nowhere to be seen. This was a cornered animal with nothing to lose and Shizuo knew that if he didn't do something, and soon, Izaya would either hurt himself or that he would end up unintentionally hurting him. He dodged the first attack and then tried to grab Izaya, but the cornered beast was unpredictable, making Shizuo's task of apprehending him with minimum damage really hard to accomplish. The fact that Izaya was so proficient at handling weapons with both hands was dangerous, and Shizuo barely had time to protect himself by raising his left arm in time to block the attack heading straight towards his throat. The piece of glass ended up getting embedded into his forearm and he took the opportunity to grab Izaya by the neck and throw him into the hallway and away from the broken glass.

He immediately removed the piece of glass from his forearm and threw it towards the balcony before he rushed to Izaya, bent down, grabbed both wrists in one hand and then wrapped the other around the frail neck before the man even had a chance to get up. He pulled up a struggling Izaya and started dragging him back to the living-room, but the man raised one leg and tried to kick him away. "Izaya!" Shizuo growled as he tightened his hold and kept it like that until Izaya stopped struggling. Now that the man was finally compliant, Shizuo pushed him into the armchair and kept him pinned there in the hope that Izaya would finally snap out of it. He forced a knee between Izaya's legs to make sure that he couldn't kick him, and then leaned in closer until Izaya's face was mere inches away from his own. Even though he was restraining him, Shizuo hoped he could make him understand that he meant no harm, but he knew it wouldn't be easy because Izaya was shaking like a leaf, his eyes unfocused and glazed over. It crushed Shizuo to know that he could cause such terror in the only human being who had never been afraid of him before.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you," he tried to assure him, but Izaya was still in his own world. "Flea!!!" he growled and Izaya jerked in his hold, some flicker of recognition coming back to those terrified brown-red eyes. "Snap out of it already!"

Izaya took a few deep breaths in order to gather his wits. "F-Fuck you," he hissed.

Shizuo sighed but didn't let go yet. "Welcome back. flea."

"Fuck you!" Izaya repeated in a venomous tone even though on the inside he was terrified at the prospect of what would happen to him now that Shizuo had him immobilized. The man was way too close, the hot breath tickling his face making his skin crawl. A few moments later, he felt Shizuo loosen the grip he had on his neck, the hand making its way towards his shoulder, and he shuddered, feeling completely disgusted by the touch. "Don't!"

"I won't!" Shizuo hurried to answer. "I will never touch you like that again."

"Let go!" Izaya demanded, but his voice sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

"I want to," Shizuo spoke softly, "but there's no guarantee you won't lose it again."

"I never lost it to begin with," Izaya hissed through clenched teeth. He could clearly remember everything up to the point where he got pinned down by Shizuo, that being the moment when his mind got flooded by memories and he ended up drowning in them.

Shizuo gave him an incredulous look. "Seriously?" He'd been certain that Izaya was not himself when he'd attacked, but if the man had really been aware of his actions, then Izaya must've been really desperate to fight in such a wild manner.

"I'm not a beast like you," Izaya said in a malicious voice. "Get your filthy hands off, now!"

Shizuo pondered the demand, but in the end he decided against it. "If I do that, you're going to attack me again, and I don't want to hurt you."

"That's rich, coming from you," Izaya said, his voice dripping venom. "Or have you already forgotten what you did to me, how you almost killed me?"

"I haven't forgotten. I... I'm sorry," Shizuo apologized in a voice laced with guilt.

Izaya's eyes widened in disbelief and he broke into hysterical laughter. "Ahh ha ha ha! You goddam beast! You dare apologize to me? Ahh ha ha ha ha!" he kept laughing, until he couldn't anymore because of the pain caused by the broken rib. "You monster!" he hissed, his expression turning savage again. "You have no right to be sorry!" he said and he noticed how Shizuo's grip on his shoulder tightened. "Beasts cannot feel regret, they have no feelings after all," he added with a nasty smirk on his face. "You're guided by your instincts only and that's why you're nothing more than a vicious animal, a beast. Eat, sleep, fuck, that's all you care about."

Shizuo growled and tightened his grip until he heard Izaya whimper. "You kept pushing me until I snapped; that's what you wanted, and now that I showed you the monster I've been trying to suppress, you start complaining. You're a hypocrite, flea."

"I'm a hypocrite?! You're the only hypocrite here, always pretending to be human when you're nothing more than a savage beast! You... you bastard... you sick fuck!" Izaya shouted in pure rage, but he ended up regretting it when Shizuo snarled and tightened the hold he had on his shoulder until he could feel the beginning of tears starting to form at the corners of his tightly shut eyes. Shizuo was still a beast with inhuman strength and it hurt so much that Izaya had to bite hard into his lower lip to stop himself from crying out, only a few pained whimpers escaping past his lips. By the time Shizuo loosened his grip, there was blood running down Izaya's chin, the coppery taste almost making him gag.

"I am human! I have feelings too! You think it's easy for me to go on living knowing what I did to you? But you know what? You made me do it! It's only your fault," Shizuo said in a low, desperate, yet dangerous tone.

Izaya felt a shiver run down his spine and he was damn terrified about the whole situation but he had so much hatred and resentment bottled up inside of him that he felt as though he would burst at any moment. "Oh, I see, so now you're blaming me for what you did, like I asked you to stab me, burn me, break my bones and then violate me in such a disgusting and vicious manner. All of it is on you, beast!" he snapped and spat Shizuo in the face.

Shizuo growled while the hand which had previously been on Izaya's shoulder viciously tightened around the slender neck again, not letting go even when Izaya started struggling for air. "You made me lose my job, and because of that I ended up disappointing my brother. Your fault, all your fault, you made me this way, I hate you, I hate you so much, why did you provoke me? All your fault, everything is your fucking fault!" Shizuo said brokenly, only letting go when he succeeded in snapping out of his temporary insanity enough to see that he was choking Izaya to death. "I'm sorry!" he nearly screeched and immediately released Izaya's wrists. He watched with wide horrified eyes how the man he'd just tried to choke to death was struggling to breathe, and the idea that he truly was a monster came back to him with a vengeance. Then, out of nowhere, he heard Shinra shout, and the shock of everything made him lose his balance and fall down when Shinra punched him in the face. I didn't even see him come in, he thought as he pushed himself off the ground with trembling limbs.

"Get away from him, now!" Shinra shouted and watched with hateful eyes as Shizuo staggered to the other side of the room.

Celty could only stare in shock. Never had she seen Shinra so angry before, and the fact that the anger was directed at Shizuo was even stranger. She was now certain that something must've happened between the two of them to shatter their friendship.

"Izaya, are you okay?" Shinra asked in a worried voice, immediately proceeding to inspect the damage when Izaya wouldn't answer. His eyes widened when he saw the bruise starting to form on Izaya's shoulder and he couldn't help but grimace when he noticed the cuts on the hands. Snapping his head in Shizuo's direction, he growled the next command. "Celty, restrain Shizuo!"

Celty stood stock still, not knowing how to react.

"Celty!" Shinra repeated, hoping she'd snap out of it. "Do what I said!"

"There's no need," Shizuo said weakly. "I... I'm leaving."

Shinra got up from where he'd knelt in front of Izaya, stomped towards Shizuo, grabbed the man by the front of his black T-shirt, and then slammed him hard into the wall.

Shizuo had to force himself not to react, not wanting to accidentally hurt Shinra even though the unfamiliar closeness made him uncomfortable.

"What did I tell you?" Shinra whispered so softly that Shizuo barely hear him.

"To stay away from Izaya," Shizuo answered just as softly.

"And did you listen to me?" Shinra shouted this time around while tightly wrapping the fingers of his other hand around Shizuo's neck.

That's when Celty snapped out of her stupor and proceeded to pull Shinra away from Shizuo.

"Let me go!! He needs to die, I'm going to kill him, let me kill him!" Shinra kept shouting while struggling to free himself from Celty's hold.

[Leave!] Celty typed on the PDA using her smoke before she showed it to Shizuo who simply nodded and rushed out of the apartment.

Shizuo never saw Izaya's disturbing smile as the man watched him leave.

"Why?! Why did you stop me?" Shinra whined once Shizuo was out of the apartment and he slumped in her shadows.

[I don't know what happened, but killing Shizuo is not the answer, no matter what he might've done to upset you.]

Shinra merely gave her a nasty glare as soon as he was released before he rushed to Izaya's side. "Izaya," he called the name softly as he raised the raven's head to look into the unfocused eyes of his now only friend. "Did he do anything to you?" he asked, dread starting to pool in his stomach at the prospect of Shizuo doing something to Izaya during the time they had been alone. Celty had only told him that Shizuo was waiting for them inside right before they had entered, and Shinra was slightly panicking knowing that Izaya had been alone with that monster for who knew how long.

"Izaya," he repeated, almost too afraid to know the answer, "did he do anything to you?" With Izaya being unresponsive, Shinra's eyes flew to Izaya's pants and he breathed in relief when he deduced that the blood came from the cuts on the hands alone. "I'm sorry Izaya, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault. I shouldn't have left you alone," he said while gently squeezing one bloody hand.

"I'm okay," Izaya said out of nowhere, startling Shinra enough to jump back and release his hand. "I was just thinking."

"Thinking? About what?!"

"It doesn't matter," Izaya answered and forced a smile on his face, hoping that Shinra would stop freaking out. It was the first time Izaya had seen Shinra lose it like that and it came as a bit of a shock. He remembered the destruction he'd caused to the man's living room and he felt the need to apologize. "You took away my jacket, so I couldn't get to my switchblade. I'm sorry about the glass."

"Oh, I see. I put it on the hall-stand. I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter anymore, but some stronger painkillers would be nice."

"Right away!" Shinra said and rushed to the medicine cabinet.

"Shinra can't tell you anything even if you ask him, because I'm not giving him permission to do so," Izaya told Celty when he figured that she would drive the man crazy with questions after he'd leave.

Celty nodded and proceeded to pick up the broken glass. A part of her wanted to go after Shizuo and offer her support, but it was obvious after what had happened that her friend had done something terrible enough to warrant such hatred from Shinra. She felt guilty about what happened since she had been the one to force Shizuo into following her back to the apartment. She really was starting to dislike what was happening around her because it felt like a part of her precious world had broken into pieces and she hated to think that things would probably never be the same again.

Izaya watched her for a few moments before retreating into his own mind. For the first time since that nefarious encounter, he'd finally found the perfect way to destroy Shizuo once and for all and his mind was in overdrive trying to come up with the details. He would make the beast cry tears of blood, of that he was certain.

Chapter 13: Before the Storm

All color had drained from Shizuo's face by the time he was outside Shinra's apartment building. Once again he'd ended up losing it, and if that wasn't proof enough that he was dangerous, he didn't know what was. Why was it always so easy to hurt Izaya, or anyone else for that matter? He had to be a monster because no decent human being would've hurt someone who had been previously injured. Even if that hadn’t been the case, the flea was still in no condition to fight, that frail body an obvious sign of how broken he was because of what had been done to him. Shizuo knew that he wasn't the smartest person around, but even he could tell that Izaya was suffering.

Of course he's suffering, you idiot, anyone would feel the same way if they had something similar done to them. His friendship with the doctor was irrevocably shattered, and after what had happened, he had no doubts that Celty would keep her distance too. Even if Shinra were to still keep it a secret, he was sure that she would most likely take Shinra's side even without knowing the truth.

Unfortunately, there was no way to go back and change things no matter how much he wished otherwise, so he shook his head and kept walking for a long time with no particular aim. When he came back to his senses he realized with no little amount of surprise that he was standing in front of Kasuka's apartment. He almost felt like laughing, because each time he was having a hard time, he was expecting his little brother to fix everything.

Shouldn't it be the other way around? He knew that he shouldn't bother Kasuka with his problems, but he felt too depressed to be alone. He hated to admit, but he needed his brother to comfort him. He rang the doorbell a few times but he got no answer, which obviously meant that Kasuka was still at work. Shizuo was so exhausted that he didn't even have enough energy to keep standing, so he allowed his tired body to slide down the door he was leaning against until he was sitting on the floor. He must've dozed off at some point, because when he opened his eyes again, Kasuka was crouching in front of him with a slightly worried expression on his face.

"Nii-san, what happened?" Kasuka asked and took the bloody hand into his own.

"I ran into Izaya," Shizuo answered brokenly, the guilt at having hurt Izaya again almost smothering him.

Kasuka stiffened, his grip tightening to the point that it would've been painful for anyone else, but Shizuo showed no sign of discomfort. "You didn't, right?"

"No!" Shizuo rushed to answer. No matter what would happen from there on out, he would never do something like that again, not when he preferred death over an increase in his suffocating guilt. It was already hard enough to get through the day knowing what he had done to Izaya.

"I'm glad to hear that, nii-san," Kasuka sighed softly in relief, "and I'm sorry to have assumed that―"

"I understand. I did it once, who says I won't do it again?" Shizuo cut him off while blankly staring ahead.

Kasuka lowered his head. "I'm sorry," he said, his tone nearly pleading. It was not his intention to hurt Shizuo, but he had wanted to know the truth.

Shizuo laughed brokenly. "No, I'm sorry," he uttered, his eyes growing dark and his mind drifting off.

Kasuka knew that it was pointless to speak to Shizuo when he was like this, the tormented expression on the man’s face a now too familiar sign that he was drowning in self-loathing, so instead he gently turned around the bleeding arm in order to assess the damage. It wasn't unusual for Shizuo to get injured, but Kasuka would be lying if he said that he'd gotten used to seeing him covered in blood. Such a sight always gave him this strange ache around his chest area that he couldn't stand.

"You need stitches," he finally said and hoped that Shizuo would listen to him for once. "Get up, I'll take you to a hospital." He held his breath for a few seconds while waiting for an answer and he was genuinely surprised when Shizuo nodded. He helped him get up and then pulled out his phone and called back the driver. He was still expecting a fight of some sorts, but when he didn't get any he quietly led his brother to the car and then out of it and into the hospital once they arrived there.

"Hey, Kasuka, have you ever been terrified of something or someone?" Shizuo asked while they were waiting to get called inside so that he would get his cut stitched up.

"Not really," Kasuka answered after a few moments of thinking, "at least not as far as I can remember."

"How about that time I picked up the fridge and wanted to hit you with it?" Shizuo asked, grimacing.

"No."

Shizuo looked at him in surprise. "I really was going to hit you. My bones breaking was the only thing that saved you."

"Perhaps that was your intention, but I don't think you would've gone through with it." Kasuka then ran a hand through Shizuo's hair. "You would never hurt me."

"Stop that," Shizuo hissed as he pulled away.

Kasuka looked at him blankly, his hand still in the air. "Why?"

"People will think that you're my girlfriend or something," Shizuo mumbled, his cheeks slightly flushed.

Kasuka pulled his hand away the next instant, a look of mortification upon his face. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally finding his voice. "But I'm your brother."

"Yeah, but they don't know that."

Kasuka narrowed his eyes. "Even so, why would I be the girlfriend?"

"You're too pretty," Shizuo muttered as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"You yourself are good-looking, nii-san."

"Can we change the subject please?" Shizuo pleaded, cringing.

"It doesn't matter if you like guys, I still love you," Kasuka reassured him.

"I don't like guys!" Shizuo nearly growled.

Kasuka looked at him for a while but didn't say anything.

"I really don't!!" Shizuo repeated in an almost pleading tone.

"Okay," was all that Kasuka said.

Shizuo shot him a nasty glare and opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a nurse who showed up right at that moment.

"Heiwajima Shizuo-san, please follow me."

"We'll finish this when I get back," he warned before he turned around and went after her.

Kasuka remained seated on the chair, trying not to think about his brother's sexual preferences, or anything that involved his brother and the word sex in the same sentence, especially if it had anything to do with Izaya. It was already bad enough to have seen Izaya naked and bleeding, but to know that his brother had been the one to do such a thing to the Informant was simply horrible. He could already feel a headache approaching, so he closed his eyes and tried to relax a bit before Shizuo came back. Between filming and visiting Shizuo, he had very little time left for himself. After that night when Shizuo got drunk, Kasuka made sure to visit him as often as he could, and now Shizuo had to run into Izaya and ruin all the progress that Kasuka had worked so hard to achieve.

Shizuo had been a mess ever since he unleashed all of his fury on Izaya and there were days when Kasuka had doubts that his brother would even have the strength to get out of bed, but he kept pushing him and telling him that everything would be all right, until Shizuo eventually got back to his usual routine. Kasuka was certainly not happy with Shizuo's job, but Shizuo didn't want to stop working for Tom so there wasn't much he could do to change his mind. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he either lost track of time or he ended up dozing off, because he was thinking about his brother's job one second and in the next one Shizuo was talking to him. It took a few moments for his brain to catch up, but when it did, he almost winced at Shizuo's words.

"―ot into guys, got it?"

Kasuka was too exhausted to argue, so all he did was blink and nod instead of giving an answer. "Does it hurt?"

"No, it's fine. They also took care of my other cut, so I'm all good now," Shizuo informed him as he extended his uninjured hand.

"What other cut?" Kasuka inquired as he stood up, eyes infinitesimally narrowing further.

Shizuo smiled nervously. "Some guy nicked my skin with a knife, but I'm fine, don't worry about it."

"Nii-san! Quit that dangerous job already!"

"I'm sorry Kasuka. I... I can't. It keeps my mind off things, and I can blow some steam once in a while," Shizuo confessed and actually ended up wincing when he saw Kasuka's icy stare.

Kasuka turned around and started walking towards the exit, knowing there was nothing he could say that would convince Shizuo to quit his job. He wasn't giving up though, because he was certain that he could eventually get him to quit. He just needed time, that was all. He kept on walking, and once they were outside they got into the car and Kasuka ordered the driver to take Shizuo home before dropping him off at his own apartment. He really needed some sleep.

* * *

Izaya glared with animosity at the brown rice on his plate, then back at Shinra. "Why must you torture me so? If you insist on forcing me to eat, you might as well give me some fatty tuna."

Shinra glared back. "You can't eat too much at once after starving yourself for so long, and I know of your addiction to fatty tuna."

Izaya touched a bit of the rice with the tip of his tongue, and then dropped it back on the plate. "I can't eat this," he said, frowning.

"You haven't even tried it! You have to swallow it, you know?" Shinra sneered, a bit of exasperation seeping into his voice. "Start with this, and you can move to fatty tuna in a couple of days."

Izaya kept glaring at the plate as though he was trying to incinerate it with the power of his mind. "This tastes disgusting."

Shinra sighed. "Even so, you still have to eat it."

Izaya pushed the plate away. "I'd rather not."

Shinra glared at him so hard that Izaya actually winced. "W-What? What's with that look?"

"Fine, don't eat it, but you'll have to stay here until you do."

"You can't keep me here!" Izaya shouted and banged the spoon against the table, immediately regretting it when pain flared up his stitched-up hand.

"Since you're taking on the role of a spoiled brat, I'll have to be the responsible adult and ground you to your room until you eat," Shinra declared as he leaned back against the chair. "Celty here will be your mommy, isn't that right, darling?" he continued, giving Celty a heated gaze.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Izaya blurted out before he sprang to his feet and nearly ran to the bathroom.

[Stop that!]

Shinra's expression turned serious. "Don't worry, it's not because of us. He fears something."

[And what may that be?]

"Sorry, can't say."

Celty wanted to know more, but Izaya had prohibited Shinra to tell her anything so she had no choice but to accept it. Her shoulders sagged. She hated to admit, but she was feeling rather depressed.

"What's wrong, Celty dear?"

[I'd rather not say.]

"Come on," Shinra said as he gently rubbed her shoulder. "You can tell me."

Celty hesitated for a few moments before she finally typed on her PDA. [I'm worried about Shizuo. He was injured when he left.]

"He'll live, unfortunately," Shinra said, his voice more spiteful that Celty had ever heard it.

[How can you even say that?!]

Shinra opened his mouth to say something, but instead he changed his mind and stood up. "I'll go check on Izaya," he stated before heading in the direction of the bathroom. Celty had no idea what was going on, so he couldn't blame her for worrying about Shizuo, but he knew very well what had transpired between Shizuo and Izaya and he wished that he had been allowed to strangle the monster to death. Izaya was on a path to self-destruction because of what Shizuo had done to him and Shinra hoped that he could save him before it was too late. Judging by the noises coming from behind the door, Izaya was dry heaving, which was certainly not something one should do when sporting a broken rib. "Hey, Izaya, be careful," he spoke loudly.

Izaya moaned in pain and opened the door a few moments later, Shinra immediately grabbing his arm and steadying him because it didn't look like the man would be able to walk by himself.

"H-Hurts," Izaya whimpered, face contorted in pain.

Shinra sighed. "Of course it hurts, you're injured. You shouldn't be moving at all."

"I n-need more painkillers," Izaya nearly begged.

"I'm sorry but I can't give you more. I already gave you too many."

"Chest... h-hurts," Izaya whined as Shinra helped him lie on the bed.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said before he rushed out of the bedroom, leaving Izaya to curl in on himself. He really hated to see his friend suffer, to be unable to do anything to help ease his pain. At least Izaya had changed out of the bloody clothes and into clean ones before dinner, and Shinra was grateful for that because he would've really hated to do it himself when Izaya was in so much pain. After what Izaya had been through, Shinra had a feeling that the man wouldn't appreciate anyone taking his clothes off.

Inside the bedroom, Izaya clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. He couldn't think clearly when all he could feel was agonizing pain with each breath he took, and that infuriated him to not end. In order for his revenge to come to fruition, he'd have to plan everything in detail, and he couldn't do it while he was writhing in agony. Shinra could've given him more painkillers, but the bastard had refused to ease his torment. If only he could move, he would be able to get them himself, but instead all he could do was curl into a tight ball and wait for the pain to lessen.

He had finally found a way to drag Shizuo on the chess board as a piece and he wanted to put his plan into action as soon as possible. It wouldn't be easy, and it would take time, but if he played his cards right, he'd succeed in destroying both the beast's mind and soul. A twisted smile formed on his pained face and his eyes shone with malice. Soon, he thought, holding onto the piece of paper with Slon's number which he had retrieved from the pocket of his borrowed pants, soon the beast will know despair.

Chapter 14: Slowly Chipping Away

Hours turned into days, days into weeks, but the guilt didn't lessen. Shizuo's mind was simply unable to cope with what he'd done. What happened had also been Izaya's fault to some degree, but he shouldn't have risen to the bait and shown Izaya just what kind of monster he could be. The bastard was obviously not doing well, and even though the bruises on that pale body didn't really come as a surprise, the ribs and bones showing though the skin left him wondering just how difficult it had to be for the flea to keep on living after such a traumatic experience. Anyone who knew Izaya even a tiny bit could tell that he loved to be in control, which meant that when said control had been brutally ripped away from him it must've turned his carefully constructed world upside down.

The flea was hurting badly, that mask of hatred unable to hide the pain Shizuo saw in those dark-red orbs, that fear the man could never again be able to conceal while being in his presence. At least he hadn't broken him this time around when they had ran into each other at Shinra's apartment, which was in fact a tremendous progress if one was to compare it to that other time. He could still clearly remember that night. It hadn't only been the night when he'd broken Izaya to pieces, but it was also the night when Kasuka had learned just how monstrous his brother truly was. How could Kasuka even stand to look at him anymore, touch him so casually, be in the same room with him as opposed to running away screaming? Not that Kasuka would ever do something like that, but Shizuo couldn't really blame him if he did. Kasuka's words still echoed in his mind: "No matter what you do, I'll always be on your side."

Sighing, he opened the door to his apartment and lit up a cigarette as he sat down on the couch and closed his eyes to relax a bit after a hard day's work. God, how he’d missed smoking, but he hadn't been able to do it until after the run-in he had with Izaya. The burn mark he left on the flea's neck didn't look like it had scarred and that somehow made him feel less guilty about doing it in the first place. It might've been better if he hadn't started smoking again, because going through two packs a day was neither healthy nor cheap and the smell still made him feel a bit sick sometimes, but he saw it as yet another form of punishment he deserved for being a monster that could only break both things and people.

Kasuka came to visit as often as he could, and while they didn't talk much, it was comforting for Shizuo to know that he still had someone on his side. He’d ran into Celty a few times after the incident, but she never brought up the subject of Izaya, and because he didn't have much to say in general that didn't involve complaining or cursing the flea, it led to them not communicating with each other as much as they used to. Even when they did talk, it was only a few words about stuff that neither of them cared about, a habit ingrained by the courtesy they thought they needed to show each other.

There were some days when he could pretend that everything was normal, that what he'd done in that filthy alley never happened, that his friends didn't hate him and that his little brother didn't see him as something even lesser than before, but unfortunately such days were rare. Kasuka would never admit it, but Shizuo knew that what happened bothered his brother to some extent. He would sometimes catch him stare with this strange expression of hurt, if it was hurt, because he could never really be sure what Kasuka was thinking. His little brother was the biggest enigma in the whole wide universe, even bigger than Izaya, and that said a lot. His jaw immediately tensed at the thought of Izaya and he almost sneered at how easily he could end up drowning in self-loathing and self-pity, just like every other day when he came home from work. He stubbed the cigarette butt with a little more force than was necessary and got up, intending to get out of his clothes, take a shower and then perhaps watch some TV before eating.

He was about to press the handle to his room when he heard someone ring the doorbell once. He found that to be strange; he remembered Kasuka saying he couldn’t visit him that day because he had an appointment. Sighing, he went to the door to see who it was, but when he opened it he found no one there. He shrugged and moved to close it, thinking that it must've been a child's prank, but he stopped when he noticed the small box at his feet. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a child's prank after all. Perhaps it was the terrified delivery man from last time who thought that it would be a better idea to leave the package on the floor and run the hell away from there. Shizuo bent down and picked it up before he closed the door behind him and made his way to the couch. He sat down and proceeded to inspect the box, but he found nothing written on it. More than a little curious now, he removed the wrapper, opened the box and found a DVD inside. What the―

He heard his phone ring, so he reached into his pocket to fish it out. "Hello?"

"Did you miss me, Shizu-chan~? You must have, it's been soooo long since we’ve last talked," Izaya chirped in his usual annoying voice that Shizuo hadn't heard since before that fucked up night.

He was so stunned by the call that it was almost as though his brain had forgotten how to form words.

"Shizu-chan?" Izaya repeated, and both Shizou's heart and fist clenched at the sound of that annoying nickname spoken in such a confident voice. It was almost nostalgic.

"Y-Yeah, I'm here," was all he could say while trying to figure out why the flea would call him out of nowhere.

"Did you get my present?"

"Huh?"

"The box, Shizu-chan, the box. Why must you be so dense?"  Izaya sighed dramatically. "Open the box and look inside. I sent you a present."

"Flea, are you high or something?" Shizuo spoke softly, as though he was afraid he'd spook Izaya away if he seemed too aggressive. He never would've thought that he'd miss their usual banter so much.

Izaya chuckled. "I assure you that I am not high on anything. Anyway, try to pay attention, even though I know it's hard, with you being a protozoan and all that. Did you get the box, and if so, did you open it?"

Shizuo scowled at the insult but still decided that he might as well talk to Izaya and hopefully get a chance to properly apologize for the shit he'd done the last two times they had ran into each other. Trying to choke someone to death was certainly not how someone should apologize. "I got it... what about it?"

Izaya chuckled again. "Play it," he told him, his voice taking on a malicious edge.

Shizuo felt a chill run down his spine, the feeling that his world was about to get turned upside down almost making his knees weak. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that whatever the flea wanted to show him was not something he'd ever want to see. He got up and reluctantly walked over to the DVD Player where he inserted the disc.

"Ah, you'd better sit down, Shizu-chan," he heard Izaya say and he went to sit back on the couch as instructed, dreading whatever the bastard louse was about to show him.

At first there was just a black screen and some background noise, but the camera moved eventually and the louse's face came into view.

"Ne, Shizu-chan, do you think you could ever hate me as much as I hate you?" Shizuo heard the Izaya in the video say and his dread went up a notch. "I bet I can make you."

Shit, shit, shit, whatever the bastard had planned was not good. "What the fuck is this?" he growled into the phone.

"Shhh! Keep watching, you'll see soon enough."

The view of the camera changed as Izaya started walking towards what looked like an abandoned house. This time around, Shizuo could only hear the voice.

"Hmm, perhaps I should've picked another place, you know, a dirtier place, just like that place, if you know what I mean," the voice said, followed by a string of disturbing chuckles.

"F-Flea... what―"

"Stop sounding so lost, Shizu-chan, you're being boring. Don't tell me that you weren't expecting some sort of punishment for what you've done because then I would be really disappointed in your protozoic brain. Well, it's not like I had high expectations to begin with, but still," the Izaya on the phone said. "I'm watching this too, so let's both enjoy it, ne?"

The Izaya in the video went up some stairs before he opened a door and went into what looked like one hell of a dirty and dusty room. It was only for a fraction of a second, when the camera's angle changed to show the flea's face, but Shizuo could've sworn he saw something or someone lying on the floor.

"I don't know if you've been counting the days, but I have, and guess what, Shizu-chan? It's been exactly seventy-two days since you dragged me into that alley and played oh so gently with me," Izaya said mockingly.

Shizuo heard a low pained moan and his blood froze, something about the voice sounding eerily familiar.

"Ah, he's awake, one second," Izaya commented before he turned the camera to reveal someone lying face-down on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back and his face obscured by brown hair.

Shizuo felt something inside of him crumble, immediately recognizing the person in the video as being none other than his little brother Kasuka. Oh god, please no, anything but Kasuka. "No..." he said weakly into the phone, his only response being a malicious laugh. "A...any-thing but Kasuka," he continued brokenly, his voice trembling in such a way that it was almost unrecognizable even to his own ears.

The Izaya on the phone ignored him, but the one in the video kept prancing around Kasuka's helpless form as though he was some sort of predator sizing up its prey.

"Kasuka-kun, wake up already," Izaya chirped and Kasuka seemed to slowly come back to his senses. He didn't look as surprised as he should've been considering he was on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back and his brother's enemy staring down at him.

"Oh god, don't―"

"Don't what, Shizu-chan? Don't hurt Kasuka? I'm seriously baffled at how obtuse you can be. Even you should be able to tell that whatever happened in this video can no longer be changed. You'd think the time-stamp would stand out," Izaya sighed and Shizuo could almost see the son of a bitch roll his eyes.

His own eyes fell on the time-stamp and for a few suffocating moments he simply could not breathe. Three hours... that was how much time had passed between whatever atrocity Izaya had committed and the time Shizuo had received the DVD. He felt the room starting to spin around him, his heart hammering so loudly and painfully inside his rib cage that he couldn't hear any of the words being spoken to him, nor the discussion taking place in the video. Nonononono! NOT Kasuka! Why take it out on him when I would gladly let you break me instead? A thousand thoughts went through his head, all revolving around his brother, and by the time he came back to his senses it looked like Kasuka was speaking to Izaya. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!!! Stop being so goddam loud!  he ordered his heart while his fingers tightly clenched in the material of his shirt.

"―ted this," he heard Kasuka say in his usual flat tone.

"Yes, you really should have expected this, Kasu-chan. How naive can you be?" Izaya asked before he burst into laughter. "I, however, expected better from you."

Kasuka got up with a bit of effort but it didn't seem like it mattered to Izaya because the bastard kept filming with no care in the world.

Kasuka leaned against the wall, his eyes never leaving Izaya's form. "So what do you want?" 

Both Izayas chuckled at the same time and Shizuo's body shook as a shiver ran down his spine at the ominous sound. There was this nagging voice in the back of his mind screaming about where this was going, but he refused to acknowledge it. "You wouldn't," he nearly choked as the words left his lips. "You could never..." he continued, his voice a desperate plea.

The Izaya on the phone giggled but otherwise stayed quiet, the one in the video speaking instead.

"World peace? No, not really, just kidding; that'd be sooo bo~oring! But anyway, you already know what I want. Come on, Kasu-chan, you can't possibly be as dense as your brother. Please don't disappoint me!"

Kasuka stared blankly at the camera, or at Izaya, or both. "You seek revenge on my brother."

"See? It wasn't that hard to guess." 

"Do you plan on killing me?" Kasuka cautiously moved to check out the window.

"Of course I won't kill you," Izaya giggled, "that, too, would be boring. No, no, what I'm going to do is so much worse."

Kasuka spared him an uninterested glance before looking outside again. "You're welcome to try."

Shizuo waited with his breath caught in his throat to see what Izaya would say next but nothing happened, and when he heard the voice on the phone instead of the one in the video he almost dropped it in surprise.

"Your brother really is one of a kind. Most people would've panicked, but he didn't. He's just as monstrous as you are, the only difference being that he is on the opposite side of the spectrum."

"Fuck you!" Shizuo growled into the phone.

Izaya yawned, as though the whole thing was boring him to tears. "You already have, Shizu-chan, and let me tell you something, you really sucked at it."

Shizuo flinched at the remark, but he was too fucking upset to give a shit about what he had done to the flea when Kasuka's life was at stake. "What did you do to my brother?"

"Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! You should really learn the meaning of the word patience."

"Stop screwing around!" Shizuo shouted into the phone, fingers clenched so tightly around it that he could almost hear the plastic crack under the strain.

"Have you ever heard the saying 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?’"

"What―"

"Your ignorance doesn't seem to know any boundaries" Izaya sighed loudly into the phone. "It's a saying. What it means is that a person who has injured another person is penalized by receiving the injury inflicted on the victim."

Shizuo's hand further tightened around the phone, a piece of plastic falling at his feet. It was a miracle the thing was still working. "What... what does that have to do with Kasuka? If I understood you correctly, I should be the one in that room, not Kasuka."

Izaya giggled. "Ah, but Shizu-chan, that'd be too predictable. Why 'an eye for an eye,' when a 'sibling's eye for an eye' sounds so much better?" he said, his tone more twisted and malicious than Shizuo had ever heard it before.

A whine got past the lump in Shizuo's throat, the next words leaving his mouth sounding just as broken as he was. "Y-You didn't, you wouldn't. Please tell me that you didn't!" he pleaded.

"You're right, Shizu-chan, you know me too well. I'm not sure I like that,"  Izaya admitted, thoughtfully. "I'm not you after all, I really couldn't do it, but he could," Izaya revealed, and Shizuo's blood froze in his veins when he heard a third voice coming from the recording on the video.

"Good, I see you already brought him here," the other man said, and Shizuo dropped the phone, the horror of what they were about to do, of what they had most likely done, finally dawning on him.

Nononononononono!

Chapter 15: Annihilation

He wanted nothing more than to look away but at the same time he couldn't take his eyes off the screen. That was his little brother there, trapped like an animal between two monsters and there was nothing he could do about it.

"I told you I would," said the Izaya in the video.

"Hello, Yuuhei, it's a pleasure to meet you," the other man said before turning to Izaya. "Why are you filming this?"

Izaya snickered. "Insurance. As long as we have this, he'll keep quiet, unless he wants everyone to see what we're about to do."

"Good idea. Anyway, where were we? Oh, right, it's nice to meet you, Hanejima Yuuhei, I'm Slon," the man said as he sauntered in Kasuka's direction.

Shizuo's face twisted in horror and he couldn’t help but whimper. He picked up the phone and put it back to his ear.

"Shizu-chan? Did you pass out or something?" Izaya asked, but Shizuo couldn't find his voice when the man in the video was getting closer and closer to his little brother.

There were a lot of things he expected to see, but Kasuka somehow slipping one hand out of the cuffs and smacking the guy in the face with the metal was not one of them. For a fraction of a second, when Kasuka made a dash towards the door, Shizuo believed that his brother could make it, but the guy grabbed his jacket and pulled him backwards. Kasuka almost tripped and fell, but he was caught by the arm and thrown into the wall opposite to the door.

"I can hear you breathing, Shizu-chan, so I guess it's safe to assume that you're still there. Anyway, I can't believe he didn't cry out at that. He really is just as monstrous as you are."

Shizuo couldn't answer though, not when Kasuka was being picked up and pinned between the wall and that monster of a man who looked like he could break him with almost no effort at all. He was big, too big, a foreigner looking like a professional wrestler, and it was pretty safe to assume that Kasuka would never be able to fight him off.

"I suggest you don't do that again, unless you want me to teach you the meaning of the word pain," Slon threatened, and Shizuo felt his stomach churn when he saw brief disgust cross Kasuka's face as the man shoved a knee between his legs.

With his arms pinned above his head and that bastard squashing him between the wall and his body, there was nothing that Kasuka could do when the man grabbed his jaw and crushed their lips together.

"Stop it!" Shizuo cried out.

"I already told you, this is all in the past, and there's nothing you can do to change it," Izaya reminded him, snickering at the pain and desperation he could hear in Shizuo's voice.

"Please..." Shizuo continued weakly. Please don't make me watch this anymore, please tell me it's not true!

Kasuka couldn't even budge an inch, and when Slon finally pulled away, he was gasping for air. He turned brown eyes towards Izaya and Shizuo could swear that he saw hurt in them. "Why?" Kasuka asked, his eyes fixed on the man filming the assault.

"Because he cares about you more than he cares about himself," Izaya told him as he zoomed in on Kasuka's face.

"What are you talking about?" Slon asked just before he punched his victim in the stomach so hard that Kasuka ended up falling to the ground in a heap the second he was released.

"It doesn't matter, just do your thing," Izaya brushed off the question. "Ah, but before you start, I'd like to know how Kasu-chan got out of those cuffs."

"The cuffs were too loose," Slon said and bent down to grab Kasuka by the hair, only to get kicked in the face by a heavy boot.

Kasuka pushed himself off the ground and tried to make another run for the door, but Slon caught his ankle and pulled him back, a heavy fist descending on Kasuka's lower back and crushing him into the floor beneath.

Shizuo felt tears running down his face at the sight of Kasuka trying to curl in on himself because of the pain.

"That wasn't very nice," Slon said, frowning, before he punched Kasuka in the face so hard that the smaller man’s lip split open.

Shizuo actually cried out at that, the horror of it all hitting him even harder than before.

"It's all right to cry, Shizu-chan, it's a natural response to pain. Even beasts cry, ne?"

"M-Monster," Shizuo stuttered.

"In order to fight a monster, I had to turn into one myself. You, of all people, have no right to judge me," Izaya hissed in a voice laced with disgust.

"Bast―" Shizuo started, but he ended up choking on the words when he saw Slon lower the zipper of his pants.

"You shouldn't have broken my nose," Slon remarked as he rolled Kasuka on his stomach, pinning him down by the nape.

Kasuka tried to use his hands to pry away the man's fingers, but Slon grabbed the still cuffed wrist and twisted it until it broke with a sickening crunch. For the first time since it all began, Kasuka cried out in pain.

Shizuo didn't remember getting up, or moving, but when he came back to his senses he was clawing at the screen while his whole body was trembling in pain and rage. He gripped the phone tighter, his breath coming out ragged. "He saved you," he said, "and you... this is how you repay him?"

"My hatred for you outweighs the gratitude I feel towards him."

"I'm going to fucking kill you for this!!!" Shizuo shouted into the phone, his eyes burning with hatred.

"No, you won't, Shizu-chan, not unless you want the whole world to see the video of your brother getting sodomized."

Slon started working on unbuckling Kasuka's belt, but not before punching him a few more times for good measure.

"I'll fucking kill you!" Shizuo growled.

"Shouldn't you be apologizing instead of threatening me, hmm?"

"Fucking kill you..." Shizuo repeated, his vision blurred by tears as he watched Slon stroke his member to hardness before settling himself between Kasuka's legs.

Kasuka was too weak to fight back, his left hand trembling as he kept trying to pull Slon's fingers away from his neck.

The Izaya in the video was eerily quiet, but the one on the phone couldn't stop chuckling. "Doesn't Slon remind you of someone?"

"What...?"

"You, Shizu-chan, you're Slon."

Shizuo felt the room starting to spin around him, Izaya's words a sharp, hot knife cutting into his flesh with a viciousness that shook him to the core. Suddenly, he wasn't seeing Slon there anymore, the man's face having been replaced by his own. Slon wasn't the one holding his little brother down, Shizuo himself was doing that, and when the man positioned himself at Kasuka's entrance, Shizuo screamed and tightly shut his eyes, quivering fingers pulling at his own hair in despair. He could not watch, could not bear to see Kasuka's face as his insides were ripped to shreds, nor the pain and betrayal he'd certainly see in those terrified brown eyes. He expected to hear screams, cries, anything, but instead it was quiet; too quiet. Panic-stricken, he snapped his head back to the screen, thinking that Slon had somehow killed Kasuka, but there was nothing there, its blackness tearing his sanity apart.

"Sorry, Shizu-chan,  but that's all you get to see."

"W-Why?" Shizuo asked, his teeth chattering so hard that even Izaya could hear the sound through the phone.

"Believe it or not, I like Kasuka-kun, and as much as I hate you, I won't humiliate him more than I already have by showing you his degradation."

Shizuo broke into sobbing.

"That's good, Shizu-chan, let it all out. Even I cried, but you already know that."

"He w-was... inno-cent!" Shizuo managed to say in-between heart-wrenching sobs, once again tugging at his blond locks in despair, the memory of his little brother gently running his fingers through them only making him cry harder.

"No one is innocent."

"He... he didn't de-serve t-this!"

"And I did?" Izaya asked in a flat tone.

Shizuo swung his fist so hard that the TV flew into the wall behind. No flea, you didn't deserve it either. He couldn't say it out loud though, not when the man he'd broken with his own hands had done the same thing to the only person that Shizuo cared about more than anything and anyone in the world.

"I see," Izaya said, his voice carrying some bitterness to it. "You're a hypocrite, Shizu-chan, and a monster, but a monster with feelings, and that was your downfall. I've been trying to find a way to get back at you ever since that night, but it wasn't until you said that I was the cause of you disappointing your brother that I knew what I had to do in order to break you. You're a pathetic excuse of a monster because you shouldn't have feelings, but you do, and you served me innocent Kasu-chan on a silver platter during our last meeting. You should always think before you speak."

Shizuo couldn't get his brain to form words anymore, not when the guilt he already felt continued to increase exponentially with each passing moment.

"Ah, but don't worry, Shizu-chan, I'm not a monster like you. I didn't just leave him there in a pool of his own blood. Someone is going to bring Kasuka to your place soon, so wait there if you want to see your brother. And don't call Shinra either; I already had a doctor take a look at him. It's better to get patched up by a stranger than by someone you know. Trust me, I'm speaking from experience. Then again, there are worse things than that. Can you imagine how it must feel like to see and feel the seed of the man you despise run down your blood-stained thighs? Now that's nasty. I didn't want to leave him torn like that; it's really painful, you know, but at least he didn't get stabbed in the leg. That makes things sooo much worse! Oh, I think they're there," Izaya said just as Shizuo heard the doorbell.

It took Shizuo a few tries to get to his feet, his knees so weak that he had to grab onto different pieces of furniture just to keep standing as he walked on unsteady legs. He paused for a second when he reached the handle before he pressed it with a trembling hand and he felt his entire being break into its most basic elements when he was met with the sight of an unconscious Kasuka being held by Celty.

"He passed out from the pain," Izaya told him just before Shizuo dropped the phone and pulled Kasuka into his arms.

Shizuo thought he saw Celty write something on her PDA but he couldn't be sure, not when his blurred by tears eyes were glued to Kasuka's limp form. He picked him up in his arms and closed the door behind him, managing to take exactly two steps before dropping to his knees and desperately clinging to Kasuka's broken body. He didn't even hear the doorbell as it kept ringing for a while, deaf and blind to everything around him. He wept like a child, cradling his little brother to his chest and whispering apologies in a broken voice. The bruises on Kasuka's face and neck were already starting to turn purple and Shizuo only dared to raise the black T-shirt a few inches before pulling it back and weeping even harder, the once flawless pale skin now painted red and purple. He noticed that Kasuka was wearing the same type of clothes Izaya wore that night, and the image of Kasuka looking so much like Izaya annihilated the remainder of his soul. Izaya, you're the cruelest being in existence, he thought as he buried Kasuka's head in the crook of his neck and gently ran his hand through brown locks. You win.

Chapter 16: A Walk on the Darkside

Shinra was quietly sipping a cup of coffee and reading the Dollars chat when a frantic Celty burst through the door. He could tell from her posture alone that she was panicking about something. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, but he couldn't understand her answer because she was typing too fast and showing him the PDA for less then a second before pulling it back and starting all over again. "Celty!" he shouted her name when he couldn't get her attention, and then grabbed her wrist and held onto it tightly. "Look at me!"

Celty stiffened before letting herself drop to her knees in front of him. [I'm sorry...]

Shinra squeezed her shoulder gently. "Now tell me what's wrong."

[It's about Shizuo!]

Shinra's grip on her shoulder unconsciously tightened. "I already told you, I don't care what happens to him," he hissed and removed his hand when he realized that he was holding onto her shoulder too tightly. Not that he could hurt her, but still, it wasn't right. "Sorry, I didn't mean to take it out on you."

[Shizuo was crying!]

Shinra's eyes widened in surprise; he hadn't expected that, especially when he couldn't remember ever seeing Shizuo cry.

[It's Izaya! He did something!]

So Izaya has started taking his revenge, he thought with a bit of satisfaction and he couldn't help but wonder what could Izaya have possibly done to make Shizuo cry. Celty was upset over it though and he hated that he couldn't tell her why he had crossed Shizuo off the list of people he somewhat cared about. "Have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps Shizuo deserves whatever it is that Izaya did to him?" Shinra asked as he folded his arms in front of his chest.

[Izaya did something to Kasuka!]

Shinra narrowed his eyes. "What did he do?"

[Earlier he called me and told me that he had a job for me, so I went to his apartment. When I got there, he said that all I had to do was deliver a package, and then he led me inside and pointed to Kasuka's unconscious form.]

Shinra felt a shiver run down his spine, the thought of Izaya doing something to Kasuka making him slightly nervous. Shinra didn't care about humans in general, but he had a soft spot for Izaya, Shizuo and Kasuka. He used to run into Kasuka quite a lot when they were children, so he ended up caring―in his own twisted way―about that apparently emotionless human being. He almost didn't want to know what Izaya had done to him, but Celty's PDA was shoved in his face again and he had no choice but to read the text there.

[Kasuka was hurt so badly! You could easily tell he'd been punched and that his right wrist was broken!]

Shinra's expression turned grim. Izaya's right wrist had also been broken that day.

Celty continued when she saw that Shinra wasn't saying anything. [And he was wearing Izaya's clothes!]

Shinra grit his teeth. It didn't sound good at all.

[I asked Izaya what was going on, but he refused to tell me, and then he asked me once again to take Kasuka to Shizuo's apartment.]

"How did Izaya look like?" Shinra asked, his whole body tensing and fingers digging into his own arms.

[Who cares about that that??]

"I do!"

[He's a monster!]

"Just answer my question!"

Celty tightened her hold on the PDA as she typed. [He looked pale.]

Shinra got up. "I'm going to see Izaya."

[Shizuo and Kasuka are the ones who need help, not Izaya! Please come with me to Shizuo's place!]

Shinra glared at Celty. He really hated the thought of seeing Shizuo again, but he knew that he had to do it if he wanted to check on Kasuka. "It's better if I talk to Izaya first," he decided and moved to grab a small first aid kit he kept on hand for emergencies.

Celty followed after him, smoke seeping from underneath her helmet as a clear indication of how furious she was. [What about Kasuka??]

"First Izaya, then Kasuka," Shinra declared and Celty followed him out the door.

* * *

Izaya was in the middle of pouring himself another glass of sake when he heard the doorbell ring. He raised tired eyes in the direction of the door, accidentally spilling some of it on the glass table. He chuckled at the mishap, set the bottle down and took the glass with a shaky hand, completely ignoring whoever was at the door.

"Izaya, open up!" he heard Shinra shout from behind the door.

He stared blankly ahead for a while before he raised the glass to his lips and drank the sake in one go.

"Open the door!"

Izaya ended up wincing because the ringing and the banging was grating on his already fried and crushed to fine dust nerves. He took the bottle, poured himself some more sake and then giggled when Shinra banged on the door hard enough to hurt himself, the string of curses following that last bang a clear indication of what had just happened. What an idiot, he thought as he drank some more of that expensive sake. He always had a couple of bottles of alcohol lying around the house in case he needed to celebrate a well done job with a satisfied client. He didn't usually drink because he liked to have a clear mind, but at that moment all he wanted to do was to forget the events of the day which kept bringing back horrible memories that he didn't want to think about.

"What the hell, Izaya?" Shinra shouted all of a sudden from inside the apartment, startling Izaya hard enough to almost make him lose his grip on the glass.

"Did you just break into my apartment?" Izaya asked, amusement clear in his voice.

Shinra stomped towards the corner couch and took a seat far away from Izaya so that he could better observe the man. "To answer your question, Celty opened the door for me."

Izaya's eyes turned in the direction of the door. "I had no idea that she could use her smoke like that."

"I told her to wait for me downstairs," Shinra continued as he put down the first aid kit. "You don't look hurt."

Izaya jumped straight to the subject. "Why are you here?" he asked, frowning.

Shinra shifted nervously for a while.

"Well?"

Shinra sighed. "What did you do?"

Izaya chuckled darkly and drank some more sake before finally answering. "I've done some really bad things."

"Izaya..."

"You've known Shizu-chan for far longer than I have," he stated, red eyes fixed on Shinra's tensed form, "so tell me, have you ever seen him cry?"

"No, never, not even when he was in a lot of pain because of his broken bones."

"That means that I'm the only one who succeeded in making Shizu-chan cry~" Izaya sang before he poured himself another glass. "I feel special!"

"You're special all right..." Shinra muttered, frowning.

Izaya giggled. "You were insulting me just now, weren't you?"

"I would never," Shinra tried to defend himself with a fake smile on his face while his eyes took in every detail of Izaya's hunched form. Something about him was off, the sagged shoulders and haunted eyes a sign that whatever Izaya had done was not something he had enjoyed doing. The man obviously didn't want to talk about it, so Shinra didn't know how to go about it in order to make him talk. Perhaps he could talk about something else and then go back to it once Izaya had relaxed a bit. It was worth a try. "You look better," he tried.

Izaya giggled. "Yeah... well, I can eat now, no thanks to you. That brown rice was truly horrible!"

"Will you ever stop mentioning that rice? It wasn't that bad!" the doctor snapped and his cheeks slightly flushed in embarrassment.

Izaya raised his head and looked him straight in the eyes. "Shinra, listen to me."

"Huh? Okay, I'm listening."

"Your cooking is terrible!" Izaya said and burst into laughter. "I'd rather starve to death! Well, I was starving to death that time, and I still couldn't eat it."

"Now you're just being a dick," Shinra mumbled as he glared at the obviously drunk man.

"It's okay though, I'm eating now, so don't worry about it anymore," Izaya assured him while staring at the glass in his hand as though the sake inside held all the secrets of the universe.

"You don't look like a walking corpse anymore, so I'm not worried about it. I can't however say the same thing about your mental state. Something is wrong with you and it has something to do with Kasuka and Shizuo."

Izaya threw Shinra a glare before he went back to staring at the alcohol. "I see your monstrous girlfriend has already informed you."

"She's worried about them..."

"Kasuka will live," Izaya said softly, his voice trembling a little.

"Please, just tell me what you did!"

Izaya chuckled darkly. "It's a long story."

"Start with the beginning," Shinra suggested.

Izaya looked him in the eyes for a while without saying a word.

"Please..."

Izaya smiled. "All right, if you insist!"

Shinra smiled back, wanting to reassure his friend.

"Do you remember that day when Shizu-chan showed up at your apartment?"

Shinra nodded.

"Well, that day the Awakusu-Kai paid me a visit and asked me to find some spies, like I was some pathetic human being they could order around! Ahh ha ha ha!"

"Oh, so that's how you got the broken rib."

"Yeah, I pretty much told them to go fuck themselves, and let me tell you, they didn't seem too happy about it!"

"Of course, They aren't people you should mess with. The one who hurt you wasn't Shiki though, right?" he asked and hoped that the man he trusted with the key to his apartment wouldn't do something so low as to hit an injured person.

"It was Aozaki."

"Oh, okay, good."

Izaya shot him a nasty glare.

"What I meant to say was that I'm glad it wasn't Shiki, that's all!" Shinra said, hands raised in a placating gesture.

Izaya sighed and drank some more sake. "Right... anyway, they left me Slon's number, so after the little run-in I had with Shizu-chan, I decided to use the Russian assassin to take my revenge on him. Ah, Shizu-chan made me so angry that day, daring to apologize to me like that would make everything better..."

Shinra was starting to get worried. It was a bad idea to deal with assassins in general, especially the Russian ones, and it made no sense that Kasuka got beat up instead of Shizuo ending up with a bullet through his head. "What does this have to do with Kasuka?"

Izaya giggled. "Patience, my dear Shinra, patience. Do you know the saying 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'?

"Of course," Shinra answered. "Everyone knows it."

"Shizu-chan didn't know it! Stupid protozoan!"

"Shizuo didn't kill you, so what's with the assassin?"

"I didn't take the Awakusu-Kai's job in order to get Slon to kill Shizuo, that would've been too easy! I wanted Shizu-chan to cry tears of blood, so I used Slon to hurt Kasuka," Izaya said and laughed brokenly. "It wasn't easy though, but I knew that once Slon got obsessed over something that he couldn't go on living without finding the answer or without trying that something out."

"Don't tell me you―"

"So one day I asked him if he'd like to fuck Hanejima Yuuhei," Izaya said and burst into laughter.

"Iza―"

"That brute was sooo against it in the beginning, but the more we talked about it, the more he wanted to do it, and soon enough it got to the point where he couldn't go on living if he didn't find out how it would feel like to fuck Hanejima Yuuhei. He told me so! It only took a bit over a month to play him into doing it, but it was totally worth it even though I had to work for the Awakusu-Kai during that time."

Shinra paled at the implication and sprang to his feet, his body overwhelmed by the need to punch Izaya in the face. He only managed to take one step before he froze in his tracks, a gun now pointed straight towards his chest.

"This is close enough," Izaya warned, frowning. "I'd really hate to shoot my only friend."

When did he even pull that gun out, Shinra thought, horrified. Better yet, from where did he even get the gun?

Chapter 17: You've Seen the Butcher

Izaya motioned towards the couch. "Sit down."

"From where did you get the gun?" Shinra asked, trying to sound indifferent even though he was seriously worried for his safety.

Izaya smiled bitterly.

"Please put it down before you end up hurting someone, yourself included," Shinra tried again.

"Sit down," Izaya repeated, his voice leaving no room for argument. He waited until Shinra sat back down on the couch before allowing himself to relax. "I thought you wanted to hear the whole story," he chirped, amusement clear in his voice, "so stay there until I finish. You don't get to change your mind in the middle of it."

"You know what, Izaya? Go screw yourself!" Shinra hissed.

"Oh? Why are you so mad? Weren't you supposed to not give a damn about humans, hmm? So what if I broke Kasuka? How is that any of your concern?" Chuckling, he drank more sake directly from the bottle while he waited for Shinra to complain some more.

Shinra grit his teeth but kept his mouth shut, not wanting to provoke Izaya into shooting him. Regular Izaya was bad enough, drunk Izaya with a gun in hand was a menace.

"Fine, don't answer my question. As I was saying, Slon got obsessed over Kasuka, so I offered to deliver Hanejima Yuuhei to him," he said, brown-red eyes staring at Shinra's tense form. He giggled, finding the glare shot his way to be highly amusing. "You want to hurt me, don't you? I can see it in your eyes."

"Yes, because you 'thanked' Kasuka for saving your life by―"

"And I'm grateful for that."

"That's not how you thank someone!" Shinra spat out the words, angry at the man for being such an ungrateful little shit.

Izaya's voice dripped venom as he spoke. "You're irritating me with your self-righteousness. It's easy for you to judge when you weren't the one who got fucked into the ground by that beast."

"That may be true, and I can only imagine how hard it must’ve been for you, but I can sympathize. That still doesn't give you the right to hurt an innocent person," Shinra said and shook his head in a gesture of disapproval.

Izaya stared blankly at the doctor for a long time. "Take off your clothes," he finally said in a flat tone.

"...w-what?" Shinra stuttered, completely dumbfounded.

"Take off your clothes!"

Shinra continued to stare at him, his mind unable to properly process such a ludicrous command. "Iza―"

"Take your fucking clothes off! Now!" Izaya snapped and jumped to his feet, gun pointed towards the doctor's head.

Shinra instinctively bucked into the corner of the couch, Izaya's crazed expression scaring the living daylights out of him. "Izaya, please calm down," he spoke softly, voice trembling with fear. Drunk Izaya was not only dangerous, but also insane.

"I'm not going to fucking calm down! Take your goddam clothes off! Now!" Izaya commanded.

Shinra could only stare with wide terrified eyes as Izaya stomped towards him, each step making his heart beat that much faster. "Stop!" he screamed and closed his eyes just as Izaya extended a hand towards him, the gentle touch on his face startling him just as badly as Izaya's seemingly violent behavior.

"I'm sorry..." Izaya said as he cupped Shinra's cheek, his voice filled with regret. "I only wanted you to understand. I would never hurt you."

Shinra opened his eyes and blinked a few times before punching Izaya square in the face, the man staggering backwards from the unexpected hit. "Fuck you!" he hissed, seething, before he jumped to his feet and grabbed Izaya by his V-Neck shirt with his right hand while snatching the gun with the other. "I'll never forgive you for this!" he growled, his whole body shaking in rage. Izaya's unacceptable behavior was pissing him off so much that he ended up punching the man a few more times before finally feeling satisfied enough to back away. He watched as Izaya wiped some of the blood pouring from his nose and that's when he noticed a pretty large blood stain on the right side of the black t-shirt. It's none of your business! Turn around and leave! This ungrateful bastard doesn't deserve your concern. Tell him to go to hell, he kept telling himself, yet the words that came out of his mouth were, "are you injured?"

Izaya sighed and wiped away some of the blood pouring out of his broken nose. I totally deserved it, he thought, hoping that he hadn't just irreparably ruined his friendship with Shinra. He averted his gaze, muttering a "what if I am?" Two stupid mistakes in one day, way to go Izaya!

Shinra's eye twitched in annoyance, the urge to punch Izaya a few more times suddenly coming back. Instead, he sighed and placed the gun on the table before grabbing Izaya's arm with more force than necessary and dragging him to the couch where he forced him to sit down. "You're the biggest asshole I've ever met!"

"I know."

"But I'm not about to let you die before you properly apologize for the shit you've pulled today!"

Izaya laughed awkwardly.

"What you did is unforgivable."

"I know that too."

Izaya looked so miserable that Shinra could hardly believe this was the same person who moments before seemed so hell-bent on hurting him, the malice and viciousness gone and replaced by guilt and sorrow. He wanted to hate Izaya, he wanted to punch the man one last time before turning around and walking out of the apartment with the promise to never come back; and yet he couldn't do it. "For a second I really thought you were going to..." he trailed off, still a bit shaken up about the whole thing.

"I'm sorry."

Sorry won't cut it, he wanted to say, but he ended up gasping in shock when he saw the bloody bandages covering the man's torso. "What the hell happened to you?"

Izaya frowned, seemingly looking into space before speaking in an emotionless voice. "Ah... I miscalculated."

"Miscalculated what?" Shinra inquired and proceeded to take off the bandages to see the wound better.

"Myself."

Shinra stopped what he was doing, fingers frozen on the bloodied material as he looked into those pained eyes which reflected so well the damaged soul behind them. Why are you so tormented Izaya?

"Kasuka is too nice."

Shinra nodded.

"He ditched his bodyguards and followed me when I told him that I had something to talk to him about in private."

Shinra grimaced. "He doesn't know you like I do."

"Yet here you are, taking such good care of me after I threatened you with a gun and asked you to take your clothes off," Izaya reminded him and Shinra's fingers tightly wrapped around his neck in response before he even had a chance to react.

"Don't push it," the doctor snarled and kept squeezing that neck for a while longer until he finally reigned in his rage and released the hold he had on his asshole of a friend. "I really hate you!" he hissed and brusquely pulled away the bandages.

"The gun wasn't loaded."

Shinra glared at him. "That's no excuse for what you've just done to me!"

Izaya put a hand on Shinra's shoulder and nodded.

Shinra smacked away the hand. "Don't touch me!"

If looks could kill, Izaya knew that he would've been obliterated by Shinra's icy glare the moment he made the mistake of touching him. Even his drunken messed up brain could tell he had crossed a line in their friendship that he shouldn't have crossed and that things would most likely never be the same again. The fact that Shinra was still there was a miracle in itself. I only wanted you to understand me, to stop judging me so harshly because there's no one else besides you. If not even you can understand me then―

"Is this a gunshot wound...?" Shinra asked, head tilted and a look of surprise on his face.

"Mhm, but as you can see, the bullet only grazed me."

"How―"

"Ah, I haven't finished my story. I'll continue, if you don't mind."

Shinra shrugged before proceeding to disinfect the wound.

"I knocked out Kasuka using a shot of M99, and after that someone helped me move him to a secluded area. At that point I turned on the camera and started filming the whole thing so that Shizu-chan could watch it afterwards."

Shinra tensed. You sadistic bastard.

"Kasuka didn't seem that surprised when he woke up and he kept his cool even after Slon had him restrained. That time with Shizu-chan, in the alley, I panicked, you know?" he confessed even though it pained him to do so. "Kasuka on the other hand didn't beg, didn't even say a word when Slon pulled down his pants and settled between his legs."

Shinra felt his stomach churn.

"I just couldn't believe it!" Izaya exclaimed in awe. "He truly is a magnificent beast! And yet, as I was looking at him, all I could see was myself..."

"You idiot, why did you do if you knew it'd make you so miserable?"

Izaya raised his head and looked into the distance. "It was the only way to hurt Shizu-chan."

"How could you put someone through the same thing knowing how hard it's been on you, especially someone as nice as Kasuka who went as far as to save the life of his brother's enemy just because it was the right thing to do?"

Izaya shrugged.

"This is going to hurt," Shinra warned before sticking the needle into Izaya's skin with a lot more sadistic pleasure than he had ever expected.

"Ugh... That hurt!"

"Good!" Shinra hissed and thrust in the needle again. Izaya shrieked this time and tried to move away, but Shinra grabbed him by the nape and pulled him closer until their noses were almost touching, grey eyes staring into red-brown ones. "It's a small price to pay for all the shit you've pulled today, don't you agree?"

Izaya reluctantly nodded, jaw clenched in pain and beads of sweat rolling down the sides of his face.

"I'm glad we're on the same page," Shinra chirped before he harshly thrust in the needle again.

"Argh! It hur― I'm okay, I'm okay. " Izaya tried to smile, but he couldn't, Shinra's brutal treatment pulverizing his already wrecked nerves. He figured he deserved it, but that thinking still didn't help when the needle came back a fourth time and a pained cry spilled past his bloody lips as the accursed thing perforated his already swollen skin. He was panting heavily, nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. He dared to open an eye and almost immediately regretted it, Shinra's psychotic expression making the blood in his veins freeze. He'd never seen this side of Shinra before, but he'd known it existed and now, after finally seeing it, the man somewhat scared him. It truly was a shame that he ended up making its acquaintance while he was at the end of those cold and sadistic fingers. Even the man's smile was unnerving while the eyes hidden behind the reflection in his glasses gave him an eerie look. A shiver ran down Izaya’s spine. Please just finish already!

"Oh god, just stop please! Stop! Stop!" he begged when he couldn't take it anymore, tears threatening to fall out of the corners of his eyes. Shinra stopped and looked at him, the malice behind those grey eyes―which were staring at him through black-framed glasses―making him want to run away and hide. Even the numbness from the alcohol was starting to disappear and be replaced by a somber clarity, his brain finally understanding just how dangerous the doctor was.

"I'm not done yet," Shinra announced, eyes glowing dangerously as they settled on the wound with the intention to continue from where he left off.

"W-wait!" Izaya stuttered while trying to push Shinra away, only to get his hands smacked in return. "Please wait!" he tried again and then breathed in relief when Shinra sighed and stopped torturing him. "Let me finish the story before you continue."

Shinra wasn't happy about being interrupted, but he allowed Izaya the respite anyway. "Make it short."

Izaya nodded frantically, relief flooding his senses at hearing the man's words. "I couldn't take it anymore..."

"I don't care," Shinra said, that unnerving smile still present.

"No, no, I meant that time... I couldn't take it anymore, I just couldn't stand seeing that... that brute getting ready to thrust into Kasuka, so I told him to stop," Izaya hissed, eyes burning with hatred.

Shinra blinked a couple of times, the twisted smile disappearing from his face. "What...?"

"I told Slon to stop, and he just looked at me with this incredulous expression," Izaya continued, his voice trembling a bit, "but he wasn't about to stop simply because I asked him to."

"You told him to stop?!" Shinra asked and held his breath while waiting for the answer.

"I tried to push that monster away from Kasuka, but he punched me in the stomach so hard that I almost passed out. I clung to consciousness with everything I had; I couldn't let him go through with it." The mere memory of it made him sick, his already pale skin turning paler.

"And then...?"

"I pulled out my switchblade, but I was in too much pain to fight efficiently, so when he caught my wrist I dropped it into the palm of my other hand and stabbed him in the eye with it... I've never stabbed anyone in the eye before," Izaya confessed in a voice filled with disgust. "It didn't stop him though. What a monster! He pulled out a gun and shot me, but Kasuka managed to kick it just as he fired so the bullet only grazed me before flying out of his hand."

Shinra was speechless, the madness that had taken over him earlier slowly ebbing away. He pulled one of Izaya's hands into his own, urging him to continue.

"Kasuka fought to stop him from reaching the gun, and that's how I managed to get my hands on it. I shot him, Shinra, I shot him, but he didn't go down, so I shot him again and then I grabbed Kasuka and we both ran out of there. We ran for a long time, the terror of what could've happened in that abandoned building urging us to keep running even after our legs could no longer move... or maybe that was just me, because Kasuka seemed a lot less affected than I was."

"You... you didn't go through with it," Shinra murmured with a gasp. He smiled again, but this time it was a genuine smile, not like the one that had made Izaya's hair stand on end. "You didn't do it!"

Izaya’s voice carried a bit of bitterness as he answered. "I didn't. I'm so weak that I couldn't even take my revenge on Shizu-chan the way I wanted to!" He snatched his hand from Shinra's hold, his body trembling in both terror and rage. "I couldn't do it!"

Shinra placed his hands on Izaya's shoulders and squeezed gently. "Look at me! Izaya, look at me!"

He couldn't look though, his red eyes hiding behind sweaty bangs. He was too upset over what he had tried to do and equally upset over failing in doing so. He felt like a complete failure.

Shinra grabbed the pointy chin and tilted Izaya’s head up until they were both looking into each other's eyes while he used his other hand to move away some of the black strands covering those pained red eyes. "You did well," he said and then smiled when Izaya's eyes widened at his words before the man pushed him away with a snarl.

"I don't need you to tell me that!" I'm upset because I did the right thing, you idiot! He was Orihara Izaya, and something as simple as doing the wrong thing had never stopped him before. At least he had the consolation of breaking Shizuo into a million pieces even though it would only be for a few hours. "You know," he added, his voice sounding a bit cheerful, "Shizu-chan probably still thinks that I broke his precious little brother. Ahhh... it felt so nice to hear him cry over the phone. I sent him the tape you know, and I had Celty deliver Kasuka to his apartment after another shot of M99 into his bloodstream. That kid should really learn not to turn his back on me so easily."

Shinra just stared at Izaya. "I don't even..."

Izaya smirked. "He deserved it, and don't you dare tell me otherwise!"

"I won't even bother," Shinra said before going back to sewing the wound.

"Wait! Please just... just stop torturing me. Give me some painkillers, or something, anything!" There was only so much Izaya could endure at the hands of the mad doctor.

"You can't have painkillers because you were stupid enough to drink."

"Try to be gentle, ne? After all, I saved Kasuka."

"That has nothing to do with me," Shinra said with an innocent smile on his face just before he brutally plunged the needle into swollen red flesh again, Izaya's screech not slowing him down in the slightest. It didn't even bother him when Izaya eventually passed out from the pain, because no one fucked with him and got away with it, not even Orihara Izaya. He ran his thumb over the stitched up wound, the knowledge that it would scar taking away some of the rage he felt towards the man. "I hope you'll remember this next time you think of playing games with me," he said out loud before grabbing his stuff and leaving a passed out Izaya on the couch.

Chapter 18: No Longer the Spectator

It was some sort of morbid curiosity that drove Shinra to check on Shizuo even though he would've preferred not to see the man's face again anytime soon. It wasn't like there was a need to go there anyway. As far as he knew, Kasuka was all right, besides sporting a few bruises and a broken wrist, and Shizuo was probably slowly dying on the inside, and that was fine too, because "the beast," as Izaya loved to call him, completely deserved it.

That wasn't the only reason though. He'd told Celty that he would check on Kasuka and he always tried to keep his promises when it came to her. He spared her a glance as they walked side by side up to Shizuo's apartment, her tense form reminding him just how concerned she was about a man who didn't deserve her worrying about him. Shinra found it ironic that it was his beloved Dullahan's fault that he had ended up in a situation where he could ever feel sorry for Izaya or resent Shizuo. She had been the one who told him to make friends and to live a normal life and he'd followed her advice because of how much he loved her.

Things used to be much simpler when Shizuo and Izaya only beat the crap out of each other and went to him to get patched up. He could deal with that. He could deal with the fact that his two friends, if he could even call them that, hated each other's guts, but then that idiot Shizuo went ahead and destroyed the fine balance that kept them all together and threw everything into chaos. He never even thought he'd care enough to take a side, but seeing Izaya so damaged and knowing who had been the one responsible for said damage had made him angry. The fact that he felt angry because of another human being, another sentient being that was not Celty, made him feel even angrier, if that even made any sense. He assumed it did, somehow, in some twisted way, at least in his mind anyway.

Celty was supposed to be the only one who mattered to him, but he had gotten used to Izaya's presence over the years and seeing the confident bastard change in the blink of an eye ticked him off for some reason. It was easy to deal with the usual Izaya, but the damaged Izaya was unpredictable and he hated how he ended up witnessing the man's anguish first hand, as well as that despair which drove Izaya to threaten him with a gun just to make him understand what it was like to lose control. He could still remember his heartbeat increasing and his body going cold, and even though a part of him kept telling himself that Izaya could not be serious about it, his body had still recognized the danger and reacted on its own. Yes, he understood a little better now, and that's exactly why he was pissed off at Izaya. He shouldn't have been bothered by any of it because just as Izaya himself had said, he wasn't supposed to care. You're a fool, Shinra, that's what you are, he told himself just before he stopped in front of Shizuo's apartment.

Celty knocked on the door a few times before typing on her PDA and showing it to Shinra. [I should've brought Kasuka to our place instead of doing what Izaya hired me to do.]

Shinra's heart skipped a beat when she said "our place," but he figured that it wasn't the time nor the place to allow his fantasies free reign over his mind, so he pushed them aside and stared at the door for a few moments before turning his attention back to her. "I don't think Shizuo is going to open the door."

Celty nodded, shadows slithering from underneath her helmet and seeping into the keyhole, twisting and turning around until she heard the click which indicated that they could go inside.

[Perhaps I should go in first,] she suggested and moved to go in, the bad blood between Shinra and Shizuo no longer a secret. She had a feeling that sparks would come out flying the second the two men saw each other.

Shinra grabbed her arm and pulled her back and behind him. "I'll go in first." He figured that she thought he was stupid, or crazy, or both... like she would ever need his protection, but he didn't care. He had to protect her from the truth. He could tell that she wanted to argue, but his stern look stopped any complaints she might've had. He would keep it from her no matter what, even if the price for his silence was that she kept being Shizuo's friend. Sometimes, ignorance truly was bliss.

He pressed the handle and opened the door slowly, his eyes going wide at the sight of Shizuo sitting on the floor and holding an unconscious Kasuka to his chest not even two steps away from them. They both walked inside, but the image was so surreal that Shinra froze for a few moments, unable to decide how it made him feel. He had never seen Shizuo so... so what? He didn't even know what word to use in order to accurately describe Shizuo's expression as the man gently ran his hand down Kasuka's back over and over again. Broken? Pained? No, that wasn't it. Ah, dead inside, he finally realized, those normally golden eyes―now a few shades darker―staring into nothingness.

He leaned forward a bit to have a closer look, but Shizuo didn't even seem to notice his presence. It made sense, considering how Shizuo thought that the person he cared about the most in the entire world ended up suffering the same fate he himself had inflicted upon Izaya. Was it wrong to enjoy seeing him so broken? It was only fair that Shizuo got to break too. Had Izaya succeeded, Shinra could almost think of it as some sort of divine punishment, but that was not a fate he wished upon Kasuka even though Shizuo should've suffered for far longer than the few hours he would be led to believe that Kasuka had truly been raped.

He knew very well that it was cruel, and the old him who shared many happy memories with Shizuo hated to see him like this, but neither of them could be their old selves anymore and he would never again be able to look at the man with anything else besides contempt. Because Shizuo had fallen prey to his rage, the man had destroyed everything; Shizuo had irreparably ruined the dynamics holding the four of them together. Shinra hated Shizuo for it, almost as much as he loathed him for what he had done to Izaya. Perhaps he was being selfish, but he didn't really care.

His eyes drifted over to Celty whose tense form showed just how disturbed she was after seeing Shizuo so broken. She obviously knew it was Izaya's fault, the shadowy smoke simmering around her body indicating her barely suppressed rage.

[I'm going to kill him!] she typed on her PDA with such hatred and fury that he was surprised the gadget hadn't broken in her hands.

"We'll talk about it later," he uttered as to not startle Shizuo. The last thing he needed was for Celty to go after Izaya when the Informant was one step away from a mental breakdown. The man was a bastard, sure, but even Shinra could tell that Izaya had suffered greatly. Perhaps I shouldn't have left him alone, he thought, the ride to Shizuo's apartment cooling off some of his madness, but then the PDA was shoved in his face and he had no choice but to read it.

[Just look at what he did to Shizuo!]

It was nothing compared to what the monster had done to Izaya, but he couldn't exactly tell her that. Everything was so frustrating and all he wanted to do was to go home and forget it ever happened or that he had ever known two crazy people going by the names of Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo. He had Celty, and that was the only being he needed in his life; too bad she didn't feel the same way about him. "I think Izaya already got his punishment, so there's no need for you to inflict more damage," he told her, but she didn't seem to listen, some of her black smoke snapping back and forth like an angry cat's tail.

He tilted his head and took a better look at Shizuo. The tear streaks on the man's cheeks and the eyes' now red sclera were a strange thing to see on the face of Ikebukuro's strongest. He focused his attention on Kasuka, the broken right wrist immediately standing out even though it was covered by the fur of Izaya's jacket. He didn't know whether to admire Izaya for his ingenious cruelty or to feel just a tiny bit of pity towards Shizuo, but either way, Shizuo had to let go of Kasuka in order for him to be able to take a better look at the broken appendage.

"Shizuo," he spoke softly, but there was no reaction. "Shizuo!" he repeated, this time much louder, and for a fraction of a second he thought he saw Shizuo glance at him. "Shizuo! Snap out of it," he nearly shouted, but even that turned out to be fruitless. It was only when he gave the man a jab on the shoulder that Shizuo's eyes seemed to change their focus, dark golden orbs zero-ing in on him, the emptiness of that stare giving him the chills. Even you can break, huh?

Chapter 19: A Beautiful Lie

Shizuo had always been able to handle pain―or at least that's what he used to think―but pain comes in many forms, and while he could easily manage the physical aspect of it―he was a monster after all―the pain he felt while holding Kasuka's damaged body to his chest was a sort of agony he had never felt before. Izaya's cruel words had repeatedly stabbed his heart as though they were sharp knives meant to bleed him dry, but then he had seen Kasuka in Celty's arms, looking injured, and that's when the remainder of his heart had gotten obliterated. All he could feel now was a black hole where the organ used to reside, an endless darkness in which he was rapidly drowning.

His arms held the unconscious form tighter, as though he was afraid he would lose more of Kasuka than he already had. Kasuka was kind and fragile, his complete opposite, and someone like that didn't deserve to go through something so horrible as to what Shizuo himself had put Izaya through. He could still clearly hear Kasuka scream in pain as Slon had broken his wrist, a foreign sound that he couldn't remember ever hearing before. His little brother never cried, never complained, and had never been scared before, not even when he should've been fearful of all the things his older brother could've done to him in a fit of blind rage. Kasuka had trusted him even when Shizuo didn't trust himself.

"Aren't you scared of me?" he remembered asking him one scorching summer day when they were leaning against a fence while eating ice cream. The first time he lost himself to his rage had been when Kasuka had eaten his pudding, and because of that he always had this terrifying thought that the next time he got angry he might end up hurting his little brother.

What if next time there are no more broken bones to stop me from throwing something at him, was the question always plaguing his young mind. What then? And that thought used to scare him more than anything in the world.

And he also remembered Kasuka turning his head towards him―a tiny smile that most people wouldn't have even been able to notice gracing those lips smeared with the vanilla icecream his little brother seemed to enjoy so much―and answering with an indifferent, "No," in the most monotone voice Shizuo had ever heard before continuing with a question of his own, "Why do you always ask me the same question?"

Because you should be, and yet he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead he shrugged and went back to eating his own icecream, Kasuka only staring at him with those half-closed eyes of his for a few more seconds before doing the same.

You never thought you could get hurt, huh, but look at you now. Shizuo absently ran his hand down the surely bruised back. It hurts a lot, doesn't it? It has to. He could still remember Izaya spasming around him, the body underneath him trembling in both excruciating pain and unadulterated terror. Did you cry and beg him to stop, or did you fight with everything you had to keep quiet, just like Izaya did?  The flea had never asked him to stop once as Shizuo kept thrusting harder and faster into him with the sole intent of damaging him beyond repair, the little pained whimpers slipping past those bloody lips being the only reward he got for his efforts in trying to ruin the man. Izaya had only complained about his stabbed leg, and only now did Shizuo realize how strong the flea had remained throughout the events of that dreadful night.

Slon was big, much bigger than Shizuo in every way, and even though the man didn't possess the same strength, it was enough to hurt Kasuka just as much as he had hurt Izaya. He felt his stomach churn at the thought of how that monster had ripped Kasuka apart and how much he must've enjoyed it, just like how I enjoyed breaking Izaya, and the agony and disgust his precious little brother had surely felt as Slon kept forcing himself into his unwilling body. Izaya must've felt the same way...

His hand stilled for a moment, a waft of both Kasuka and Izaya's smell filling his nostrils. The flea knew exactly what he was doing, dressing Kasuka in his clothes and forcing him to remember all the pain and suffering he'd caused him that night. He could never forget the flea's smell, something sharp and dangerous, something Izaya. Kasuka on the other hand smelled sweet. You must've eaten pudding again, and he almost smiled at that thought, but then his expression turned grim when he remembered Kasuka's split lip and the coppery, nauseating smell of Izaya's blood. His stomach turned upside down. Blood, so much of it... too much of it. Not at all surprising, considering he had torn into the much smaller body like a beast. Once disarmed, Izaya hadn't stood a change; it was ironic that although Shizuo hated violence, it was all he seemed to be capable of doing.

Kasuka had fought well too, much better than Shizuo ever expected, but that still hadn't been enough. Did you think of me while you went through that hell? Did you pray I would show up and save you, or did you hate me for being the cause of it all? I think it was the second, wasn't it? You cursed me, I am sure, you must've wished I had never been born, he thought, and with that another piece of him disappeared into the black abyss that used to be his heart. Perhaps that was the only reason why he wasn't bringing down the whole apartment building in a fit of blind fury, because underneath the deceptive calm, despair was all he felt. It was the sort of despair rooting him to the spot and making him unable to react in any way besides clinging to Kasuka's unconscious form. He remembered Kasuka's words,"I'll always be on your side," but surely that was no longer the case. How could you ever be on my side again after paying the price for my mista―

Huh?

A ripple, something disturbing the almost perpetual darkness in his mind. What―

"Shizuo?"

"Shin...ra?" he spoke softly, voice breaking. "Kasu―" he tried, but he couldn't even say his little brother's name, not when the guilt was squeezing the life out of him. He didn't even have the right to touch him anymore, yet he couldn't let go, his fingers holding even tighter onto the figure clad in Izaya's fur-trimmed coat. "Ka―" he tried again, but this time that one syllable was followed by a heart-wrenching sob.

"I need you to let go so that I can have a look at him," Shinra told him, but the doctor ended up wincing when Shizuo's hold on Kasuka tightened. The idiot is going to crush him. "I'm not going to hurt him," he promised, but Shizuo only gave him a tormented look before resting his cheek on top of Kasuka's head, strong fingers now running through silky brown locks with a tenderness that shouldn't have belonged to the same person who had left all those injuries on Izaya's body. The contrast was uncanny to say the least.

Shizuo knew that Shinra hated him because of what he had done to Izaya, and that was exactly why he couldn't allow the doctor to touch Kasuka, but when he felt a gentle hand touch his shoulder he raised tearful eyes and saw Celty's PDA hovering in front of his face.

[Shizuo, please let us help him!]

Celty didn't know what he had done, but Shizuo was certain that she too would abandon him if she ever found out. He was a monster after all, a much bigger monster than she could ever be. And he was supposed to be human...

[Shinra is only going to have a look at the broken wrist.]

Shizuo still wasn't convinced though. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't..." and he looked at Shinra through eyes blurred by tears. "I don't trust him."

Shinra merely shrugged, not at all offended by the remark. "You never trusted me to begin with."

[Even if you don't trust Shinra, you know you can trust me,] Celty tried again.

Shizuo removed his hand from Kasuka's hair.

[If he tries anything funny, I'm going to kill him myself.]

Shinra took a step towards the door. "You know, I can always just leave."

Shizuo grabbed the doctor's wrist. "Wait! Just... just wait, okay?" He realized his mistake though and released the man, but not before flinching when a disgusted glare was thrown his way. "Give me a second," he said before forcing himself to let go of Kasuka. "Be careful," he then added and waited until Celty nodded before he unclenched the fingers holding onto the fur-trimmed coat and allowed the two of them to carry Kasuka to the couch. He would've done it himself, but he didn't even have the confidence to walk let alone carry someone. He held his breath while they laid Kasuka down and then finally breathed in relief when they were done moving him. He couldn't remember the simple act of walking ever being such a hard thing to accomplish, but the desperate need to be closer to Kasuka pushed his body forward, those few unsteady steps towards the unconscious form feeling like the longest distance he had ever had to cross.

"This needs a cast," Shinra concluded once he freed Kasuka's arm from the confines of the coat and took a look at the swollen wrist. He could've taken Izaya's coat off completely, but for some sadistic reason he decided against it. Seeing your brother like this must hurt a lot... good! Shizuo had no idea how hard it had been on Izaya; how hard it still was. Shinra had witnessed some of it, and even that was more than he'd ever wanted to see or know. He could still clearly remember the day when Izaya showed up at his doorstep after the altercation with the Awakusu-Kai, those sunken cheeks and hollow eyes scaring him more than the broken rib ever could. Izaya hadn't been as lucky as Kasuka though, no one had saved him, and he also remembered the man's voice dripping venom as he said, "It's easy for you to judge when you weren't the one who got fucked into the ground by that beast." He finally understood, if only a bit, because just being in the same room with Shizuo―and knowing what the man had done―made his skin crawl. I really don't want to be here, he thought and then sighed before he turned to Shizuo. "I can't do anything about it here, but I can wrap it up tightly with bandages until he wakes up and goes to a hospital."

Shizuo nodded weakly. "Do whatever you can."

"I always do," he chirped before his voice took a more serious tone while he glared at Shizuo. "I patched up an almost dying Izaya, so Kasuka won't be a problem."

Shizuo flinched and turned away from the scrutinizing look, feeling completely ashamed for what he had done. I know that already! I know what I did to Izaya, and to you, so please, please stop looking at me like that!

Shinra sneered before he turned his attention back to Kasuka and proceeded to wrap the broken wrist. "What are you going to do about this, about Kasuka?" He had a feeling that the idiot would go after Izaya.

Shizuo's whole body shook with rage and his eyes burned with hatred now that he finally understood who was the person responsible for everything. "Kill."

Shinra's head snapped in his direction. "Don't you dare," he warned, hands balled into fists.

"Kill," Shizuo repeated as he took out Izaya's switchblade from the pocket of his pants, the same one he'd snatched from the flea that night in the alley and the same one he had plunged with sadistic pleasure into that pale, quivering thigh. He always kept it with him as a reminder of what kind of a monster he was, just in case he would ever dare to forget.

Shinra jumped to his feet, glaring murder at the beast before him. "If you touch Izaya again, I'm going to kill you myself!"

Shizuo ignored him, deaf and blind to everything around him; he was going to kill the one responsible for everything. He remembered his own words from that time when he'd ran into Izaya at Shinra's apartment, "all your fault, everything is your fucking fault!" Hah, what a joke!  He raised the switchblade and looked at Shinra with a crazed expression on his face. "The one responsible for everything is going to die," he growled before he put his other hand on the switchblade's handle and aimed it with all the speed and strength he could muster into the black hole that used to be his heart because the one who was responsible for everything was none other than himself. "Die!!!" he snarled, but the blade was stopped before it reached its target by the black smoke successfully binding his arms and body. He ignored it though, his mind set on only one thing, KillkillkillkillKILLKILLKILL, and he kept pushing it in, the tip of the switchblade slowly sinking into his flesh while blood started to trickle down the grey T-shirt he was wearing.

Celty panicked once she realizing that her power was not enough to stop him, so she grabbed his wrists with her hands and tried to pull them away, desperately wishing that she had her head so that she could talk him out of it. She tilted her helmet towards Shinra, hoping that he would understand and somehow help her out because she didn't want Shizuo to die. Please do something!

Shinra was frozen on the spot, too shocked about what he was seeing to react in any way, but then he saw Celty turn to him and he forced his numb body to move. He grabbed the man's wrists and tried to pull away his hands, watching in horror as the blade kept sinking in deeper despite their combined efforts. The man truly was a monster. "Shizuo! Shizuo!!" he shouted, but there was no reaction from his former friend. He couldn't let the bastard die; he wouldn't let him break Celty's heart. "You coward! How dare you try to kill yourself?" he snarled, and he knew that Shizuo was faltering in his actions because he could finally see the bloody tip of the switchblade just above the punctured T-shirt.

Shizuo looked at both of them, eyes filled with confusion, as though such a thought had never even crossed his mind. "I'm not... that's not what I'm trying to do!" he said, voice cracking. He remembered Izaya's words, "all of it is on you, beast!" and for once he was in agreement with the flea so he was merely trying to kill the one responsible for everything.

"You can't run away from this! You don't have the right!" Shinra continued even though it was really hard to speak while struggling to put all of his strength into stopping Shizuo from ending his pathetic existence. That and the whole thing was disturbing him in a way that he couldn't describe. He didn't know exactly how it made him feel but happy was not it.

"I need to die!" Shizuo whined pathetically. "Everything is my fault!" he snarled in contempt. It had never been the flea's fault, because all of it was on him, just as Izaya had said back then at Shinra's apartment. It had been much easier to blame the victim for the mistakes he had committed instead of admitting his guilt, and that's why he'd been in denial ever since it happened. Not anymore though, because now he saw it for what it really was: a beautiful lie. Nothing more, just a lie he kept telling himself because he was too much of a coward to handle the consequences of his own actions.

"Please stop, you're upsetting Celty!" Shinra tried and hoped that Shizuo would wake up from his madness enough to realize that he was hurting his friend. If Shizuo really succeeded in killing himself, then Celty would forever blame herself for failing to stop him. That was exactly why Shinra couldn't let it happen. "You have to keep living so that the two of them may one day forgive you. Besides, nothing happen―"

"Nii-san!!!" they all heard Kasuka shout and they snapped their heads in the man's direction, only to see him trying to get up and then failing and falling back on the couch. "What are you trying to do, nii-san?" he continued, scared out of his mind after witnessing his brother trying to kill himself and not getting any answer from the three frozen people that were inside the apartment with him.

Shizuo's strength instantly vanished at the sight of his little brother, so both his arms were pulled away the next second and the switchblade fell from his hands. Nononono, why did you have to wake up now? Please don't move... please just stay there... you must be in so much pain...  His eyes filled with tears again and he collapsed on his knees once he was released, hands gripping his dyed locks in despair. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"

Shinra immediately kicked the blade away from sight and helped Kasuka up before grabbing Celty's arm and pulling her out of the apartment knowing that it was best to leave the two brothers alone.

Kasuka walked on unsteady legs towards the trembling form of his brother, the sight tearing his heart apart. He raised his left hand and tried to run his fingers through the blond locks, but Shizuo recoiled from the touch as though he'd been burned. What... happened?

Chapter 20: Heartshaped Abyss

"Nii-san," Kasuka spoke softly, but instead of raising his head and looking at him, Shizuo recoiled at the sound as though he'd been whipped. I've never seen him cry before, he thought dejectedly. He didn't know what to do, especially when he was still somewhat confused about how he had ended up in his brother's apartment. The last thing he remembered was getting out of the taxi he'd shared with Izaya and walking away without sparing the man a second glance, his mind set on getting home and taking a long, relaxing bath. He shook his head to get rid of the memory and turned his attention back to Shizuo. "Please look at me!"

Shizuo didn't even dare raise his head to look Kasuka in the eyes, not when he knew what his little brother had been through. "Everything is my fault! I'm sorry!" He was a coward and he knew it, because he remembered seeing the terror in Izaya's eyes that night and it crushed him to know that Kasuka most likely had that same look in his eyes. He finally understood now. He understood Izaya with such clarity that it physically hurt and he loathed himself more than anyone in the world knowing he had been the one to put the man through such hell. How could he be so cruel? How could he ever blame the flea for what happened? Both Izaya and Kasuka were innocent, and both of them had been ruined because of him. That was exactly why he deserved to die a slow and extremely painful death for his sins, hopefully by the hands of the two people whose lives he'd ruined.

"Nii-san, how did I get here?" Kasuka hoped that Shizuo would stop apologizing for a second to answer his question. He didn't. "Nii-san, please, snap out of it!" he tried again. He needed to know why Shizuo was crying so that he could fix it.

"I'm sorry," Shizuo said again in-between sobs.

"Nii-san, plea―"

"Sorry!"

"Nii-san!" Kasuka tried again with no success. He knew that he had to do something but he didn't know how to reach out to Shizuo. He tried to grab his brother’s right wrist, but Shizuo once again recoiled from the touch before backing away until his back hit the wall. Kasuka tilted his head and pondered the situation for a moment before gingerly kneeling on the floor in front of the broken creature that used to be his brother. Everything hurt, especially his throbbing right wrist, but he took comfort knowing that it could've been much worse. Much, much worse. He shuddered, the memory of the man holding him down almost making him sick. What he had felt was utter disgust and he didn't remember ever experiencing it with such an intensity before. I almost got... and here he stopped his train of thoughts, not because of what could've happened, but because of the knowledge that Shizuo had actually done such an atrocious thing to Izaya. Despite all that, he still couldn't abandon his brother. "Nii-san," he tried again.

"Sorry!"

"Stop saying that!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Heiwajima Shizuo!" Kasuka shouted.

Shizuo flinched and raised his head, never expecting to get slapped, hard. What―

Kasuka watched Shizuo's stunned expression for a second before grabbing the trembling jaw in an attempt to force him to pay attention to what he was saying.

More tears ran down Shizuo's cheeks and a pathetic whimper slipped past his lips. Kasuka had never hit him before, which meant that his little brother hated him so much that he wanted to physically hurt him. "H-Hit me," he said in a shaky voice, his eyes fixed on Kasuka's split lip instead of those brown and pained orbs. "I deserve it."

"That's not what―"

"Hurt me! Break me! Kill me! I deserve all of that and much more!" he nearly shouted, his entire body shaking, shivering, suddenly feeling more cold than he could ever remember feeling. "I'm no different than the monster who...” He couldn't continue though, not when that simple word would make everything so much more real and terrifying.

Kasuka's brows slightly furrowed. "Why would I..." If Shizuo was talking about what he thought he was, then... "How do you even know about what happened?"

Shizuo nearly choked on another sob. "Izaya showed m-me the video―"

"Oh no..." Kasuka said weakly and lost his grip on Shizuo's jaw, eyes widening a bit. "You saw that?"

Shizuo nodded frantically, shivering even harder than before. He lowered his head again and raised his hands, wanting to touch Kasuka, only to lower them, knowing that he had no right to ever touch him again.

Kasuka cringed just slightly, feeling embarrassed that his brother had ended up seeing the video. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have followed Izaya. I'm sorry."

Shizuo froze, too shocked that Kasuka would apologize for something he had no control over. He raised his head, and for the first time since Kasuka had woken up, he looked him straight in the eyes. "Never s-say that again! It wasn't your fault. The victim is never at fault. You fought well, I... I saw. Not your fault."

"Nor is it yours. I'll be fine."

"It is my fault, and you'll never be fine!" Izaya was not fine either. Izaya was broken, terrified and hurt because of him.

Kasuka raised his left hand to cup Shizuo's wet cheek, but Shizuo flinched, a part of him thinking that he would get hit again. Kasuka didn't hit him though, and that crushed Shizuo even more because he thought he deserved to be punished for his sins. He knew that he shouldn't, but he nuzzled into the warm palm anyway.

"Nii-san, please stop crying," Kasuka nearly begged. He couldn't stand seeing his brother look so defeated.

"I can't help it," Shizuo cried brokenly. "You were... y-you were r-raped because of me."

Kasuka stood stock still. Ah, but if that was what Shizuo believed, then everything made perfect sense. Gently, he captured Shizuo's chin and stared into the mocha eyes. "I wasn't raped," he said sternly.

Shizuo's heart skipped a beat as he wondered if his little brother was only saying it to make him feel better.

"I don't know what Izaya told you, but nothing like that happened," Kasuka continued, hoping that Shizuo believed him.

"But I saw the video," Shizuo whispered, voice barely audible and heart hammering inside his rib cage, "I saw Slon―"

"You were deceived."

"How...?"

Kasuka gave him a sympathetic look, finally realizing why Shizuo would try to end his own life. He ran his fingers through the blonde locks, feeling an overwhelming need to comfort him. "Izaya stopped Slon and saved me."

Shizuo's mouth fell open. "Izaya saved you?"

Kasuka nodded and pulled Shizuo into a hug.

Shizuo's fingers desperately clutched the black T-shirt, wanting really hard to believe him. "You're lying," he whimpered pathetically.

"I wouldn't lie about something like that." Kasuka tightened his hold on Shizuo, feeling every tremor in that strong body that could easily snap a person in two if his brother chose to do so. Slon was strong, but he was nothing compared to Shizuo, and yet he hadn't been able to fight him off. He should've fought harder, and because he hadn't, Shizuo had almost ended up losing his life. He remembered Slon's fingers tightly wrapped around his neck, the man's hard shaft barely touching his posterior before Izaya had interrupted him and it made his stomach churn in disgust. He shuddered at the memory, wishing that he could forever erase it from his mind. Shizuo's forehead was resting on his chest, those strong hands gripping the black material of his T-shirt with heartbreaking agony. He hadn't noticed before, but the clothes he was wearing were not his. Even so, he immediately recognized them. "Let me take this off, he said, hoping that Shizuo would let him go so that he could at least take off the coat hanging from his right shoulder.

Shizuo shook his head and tightly wrapped an arm around Kasuka's back. "Leave it," he said, voice trembling. He wanted to believe Kasuka so badly, but he was still afraid that it was nothing more than a lie told by his brother in order to make him feel less guilty about everything. But what if... I need to know. He slowly unclenched the fingers holding onto the black material and helped Kasuka slip his other hand out of Izaya's coat. He then grabbed the lower part of the T-shirt before slowly pulling it up and letting the clothing article drop next to him on the floor.

Kasuka watched him, wondering what Shizuo was trying to do. "Nii-san...?"

"I need to... c-check something." He knew his voice was trembling, hell, his teeth were chattering, but he had to see it with his own eyes, otherwise he wouldn't be able to believe it.

I don't want to see this, thought Kasuka, the beginning of bruises on his chest and stomach reminding him of how easy it had been for Slon to immobilize him. "Nii-san, please..."

Shizuo checked the shoulders first before raising his head and looking him straight in the eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to see if there are any bruises on your hips."

"There aren't," Kasuka rushed to answer, but he realized that Shizuo didn't believe him when his brother unbuckled the belt and dipped a finger past the waistband of his pants before slowly pulling down the material from his left hip. "Nii-san, I swear, nothing like that happened!"

"Don't talk."

Kasuka closed his eyes, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious.

"Nothing here," Shizuo said in a voice filled with hope. He remembered how hard he had grabbed Izaya's hips that night, so it only made sense that Slon would do the same. To get leverage, and it made him sick to even think why he knew such a thing. I really am a monster. His honey-colored eyes further darkened, the regret he felt in regard to what he had done to Izaya almost suffocating him.

"I told you already, nothing happened!" Kasuka tried again, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Shizuo ignored him and did the same thing to Kasuka's right hip, a sigh leaving his dry lips when he saw no bruise in the shape of a palm or fingers. "You're not lying to me, are you?" he asked, still not one hundred percent convinced that nothing had happened. It was hard to believe that Izaya would arrange the whole thing only to save Kasuka at the last moment.

"Nii-san, I swear, nothing happened beyond me getting my ass kicked. Oh, I don't think I phrased that right, but you know what I mean." He picked up the shirt and tried to put it on, struggling with it for a bit until Shizuo grabbed it and snatched it from his hand.

"I'm going to give you one of my T-shirts," he said and moved to get up, only to get pulled back down by Kasuka.

"I would rather wear this."

Shizuo gave him a confused look.

"Nii-san, please don't hurt yourself like that again,” he nearly pleaded, and he had a feeling that he would probably never be able to erase from his mind the sight of Shizuo trying to sink that knife into his heart. If it hadn't been for Shinra and Celty, his brother would have died.

Shizuo flinched. He was feeling extremely guilty for traumatizing his little brother with such an unsightly display. "I'm sorry, I never wanted you to see that, but the thought of that monster doing to you what I did to Izaya―"

Kasuka didn't let him finish and instead pulled him into a hug. "I know that you're sorry."

Shizuo hugged him back, relief flooding both his exhausted mind and body.

"Even if... that happened to me, I still wouldn't have wanted to see you dead," Kasuka tried to reassure him.

Shizuo shook his head. "Trust me when I say that you would've hated me." Kasuka was naive if he thought that things wouldn't have changed after such a traumatic experience. The only reason he could still touch him without Kasuka not flinching away or feeling disgusted was because Slon didn't get to finish what he'd started.

"I could never hate you," Kasuka told him, his tone leaving no room for argument. He wasn't one to go back on his word, which meant that even if Izaya hadn't stopped Slon, he would've still not hated Shizuo because he had made the promise to always be on his brother's side. "Besides," he added, feeling a bit better now that he was finally safe in Shizuo's apartment, "I'm here with you now, so let's not think about what could've happened."

"Perhaps I should have Shinra take a look at you, just to be sure," Shizuo muttered, still somewhat afraid that it was all a lie.

Kasuka pushed him away. "I've never lied to you before. Why would I start now?" He got up and walked to the kitchen to get a glass a water before coming back and sitting on the couch. He watched Shizuo, who was still sitting on the floor, looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. He sighed softly.

Shizuo had observed him carefully to see if he was limping, but it didn't look like Kasuka had any problems walking. He breathed in relief and finally allowed himself to relax. Kasuka wasn't lying after all. "Can I... can I not punish Izaya for what happened today?" It was true that Izaya had been the one who got Kasuka hurt, but the man would've never done so had it not been for what Shizuo had done to him that night.

Kasuka gazed at him, that usual blank expression back on his face. "Nii-san, I would be mad at you if you would even consider doing anything to him."

"Thank you," Shizuo said before he grabbed Izaya's T-shirt and got up as well. Moving towards Kasuka, he helped him put it on. If that was what Kasuka wanted, who was he to argue otherwise? He did however cringe when he remembered his own bloody T-shirt and he realized that he also needed to patch that self-inflicted wound. "I'll be right back."

"Okay," Kasuka said and then tried to find a more comfortable position on the couch.

Shizuo went to his room and pulled a T-shirt from the drawer before he went into the bathroom to clean the cut. He took off his grey T-shirt to inspect the damage, but seeing how the wound was not that serious, he only applied a simple strip bandage after cleaning it with some water. He stared at his reflection in the mirror for a bit, cringing at the sight of his swollen red-rimmed eyes. He washed his face and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Izaya, what were you thinking? Why did you save him, he couldn't help but wonder. He stayed like that for a while, just staring at his reflection in the mirror before he walked away and went back to Kasuka.

"Will that be enough?" Kasuka asked, his eyes fixed on the strip bandage.

"It looked worse than it was," Shizuo assured him as he put on the clean T-shirt. He sat down next to Kasuka and pulled him into a hug, and even after he felt Kasuka wince, he still didn't let go; he couldn't. "I'm going to kill Slon."

"I think Izaya beat you to it.”

"Huh?" Shizuo exclaimed, dumbfounded.

"He didn't want to back off, so Izaya shot him."

Shizuo tightened his grip around Kasuka. "I'm glad that he did."

Kasuka nodded. I'm glad to be here with you, he thought just before he allowed his body to finally relax.

Chapter 21: A Poisoned Gift

Izaya's eyes flung wide open, a single thought taking center stage in his mind:

Bathroom!

He jumped to his feet and ran upstairs, the burning need to relieve himself making him forget about the injuries his body had sustained earlier that day. He almost screamed in frustration as he fumbled with the belt, hands shaking as he yanked the zipper down and pulled out his member. A satisfied sigh escaped his dry lips as his bladder gradually emptied, the pain in his nether regions ebbing away only to be replaced by a splitting headache. Once finished, he tucked himself away and walked towards the sink on unsteady legs.

"Ugh... what ha―"

His body tensed, bits and pieces of his meeting with Shinra brutally slamming through the haze that had settled over his mind. His hands froze under the cold water, the image of a terrified Shinra leaving him weak at the knees. Did I―

"No!" he screeched in a totally uncharacteristic way while turning off the faucet with trembling hands. He rubbed his temples for a while before he raised his head to gaze at his reflection in the mirror, the sight of the dried blood on his face and throat making him gasp in surprise. He stared blankly at it for a while, the memory of Shinra repeatedly punching him in the face and breaking his nose quickly coming back to him. Oh...

He remembered threatening him with a gun and ordering him to take his clothes off, which was terrible in itself, but that wasn't what pained him to remember. No, what really squeezed his heart in a vice-grip was the memory of Shinra looking at him as though he had been betrayed by the only human he had made the mistake of caring about. Izaya felt ashamed. How could I do that to him, he thought dejectedly as he washed his face, but he ended up cringing when his eyes fell on the sewed up injury. A blind person could've done a better job, which meant that Shinra had obviously wanted the thing to scar. He should've known that drinking would be a bad idea, but he hadn't exactly been expecting visitors, so he figured that drinking would numb him enough to stop the flashbacks from bombarding his already brittle sanity. What's so wrong with wanting to forget?

He wiped his face with a towel and left the bathroom, his mind set on getting rid of any bottle of alcohol he had left. He picked up the opened bottle he didn't get to finish before passing out and poured the remaining alcohol into the sink, glaring at the liquid as it flowed down the drain. With that out of the way, he picked up one of his many phones and called Shinra.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Izaya," he said and held his breath as the silence stretched between them.

"I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name," Shinra replied in an apparently cheerful tone, but Izaya could feel the coldness behind it and he felt a chill run down his spine when he remembered the man's crazed expression as the doctor kept torturing him.

"You can't possibly be seri―" Izaya started, but he ended up losing his voice when the man ended the call.

He stayed like that for a long time, hand gripping the phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. No! You can't do this to me now!

Izaya knew that he wasn't the nicest person around, and while he did have a few fans, mainly disturbed teenage girls who thought they loved him, none of them knew the real him. What they obsessed over was not him. What they saw was nothing more than the carefully crafted image it had taken him years to perfect, just a masterfully designed mask for his humans to both fear and admire him, and because of it they thought he was indestructible. Shinra however knew the real him, the sometimes petty, insane, lonely Informant who loved humanity but received no love in return. Shinra knew that he could break, had seen him break, and instead of kicking him while he was down, like most humans would've done, he'd done everything in his power to get him back on his feet and even went as far as to protect him in more than one occasion. Such was the person he had betrayed. For the first time in his life, Izaya felt extremely guilty.

Still, he couldn't let it end like that. He shoved the phone into the pocket of his pants and went upstairs to put on a clean T-shirt. He grabbed the keys on the way to the door, slipped into his coat and headed for the Fukutoshin subway station. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell the man once he got there, but he would use the time it took to get from Shinjuku to Ikebukuro to think of a way to apologize.

Going out felt strange, a bit terrifying even, because each time he went to Ikebukuro he risked running into Shizuo. If the beast didn't kill him the next time they ran into each other...

I'd rather die than go through that again, he wanted to say, but he knew that he'd rather live no matter what.

He shivered at the thought, already regretting his decision of deleting the video he took of Slon and Kasuka. His plan hadn't worked out the way he wanted, but the video could've still been used as means of protection against Shizuo's wrath. Orihara Izaya, how could you make so many mistakes in one day? Then again, he could always bluff and see how far that got him.

He ignored the strange looks people gave him as he stepped into the subway and moved to sit at the back of the wagon. He felt tired and his entire body was hurting, but he couldn't afford to rest before talking to Shinra. After the doctor had saved his life on more than one occasion, as well as going as far as to use his own body to shield him from an incoming attack, Izaya had not once thanked him. Orihara Izaya, you're such a horrible human being. The thing was that he used to be more than just a human before Shizuo had shattered both his body and mind, but that was no longer the case, and he hated the beast for it. For him to be reduced to just a man... Shizu-chan, I hate you so much. The old Izaya was ruthless when it came to revenge, yet the new one―the human one―wasn't even capable of utterly crushing the monster who had reduced him to such a pathetic creature. And I was so close...

By the time he reached Ikebukuro he felt like he was about to throw up, the nausea he felt until then getting much worse. He paused just before leaving the station, the thought that Shizuo was somewhere nearby making a shiver run down his spine. He hadn't been to Ikebukuro alone since that day when he'd left Shinra's apartment, and each time he came back after that he'd been accompanied by Slon, the two of them working on trying to find the Awakusu-Kai spies. Hopefully, Shizuo would be too busy begging Kasuka for forgiveness to worry about him.

Right then he heard his phone ring and he picked it up.

"Oi, brat, are you messing with me?"

"Excuse me?"

"I've been calling you for hours now. Why didn't you answer?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear the phone ring," Izaya admitted. "Did you―"

"No."

Izaya felt his blood run cold. If Kine didn't get rid of Slon's body, he risked getting caught by the police. "Why?' he asked, nearly choking on the word.

"No one was there."

Izaya had to lean against a store's window just to keep standing. How did he survive that?!

"Oi, you still there?" Kine asked in a voice conveying all the irritation he felt at that moment.

"I'm sorry, Kine-san, I'm going to have to call you back later," Izaya said before hanging up, his whole body trembling as an incessant shiver kept running up and down his spine. He wasn't one to have panic attacks, but he was pretty sure that he was really close to having one. There was no place in Tokyo for him to hide from the Russian assassin, not when the man could blow his brains out any time he wanted, which meant that the only way for him to survive would be to end the man's life while he was lying in some hospital bed. He typed a number on his phone and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

"What do you want?"

"I need you to check the hospitals around Tokyo for a person named Slon," Izaya said while trying to sound like his usual calm self.

"Hey, I'm not your secretary."

"No, but you're still my employee, Ran, so I suggest you get to it."

"Hey bas―"

"The underground ones too. Let me know when you find him," he said and ended the call knowing that Ran would do as he was told.

He stayed like that for a few more minutes, body trembling as he tried to chase away the nausea. If the old me would see me now, he would probably laugh in my face. He pushed himself away from the surface he was leaning against and kept walking until he found himself in front of the elevator inside Shinra's apartment building. He raised a hand to press the button, but he was grabbed by the arm and dragged behind the door leading to the staircase where he was harshly slammed into the wall.

He chuckled, the black smoke spilling out from underneath Celty's helmet clearly indicating how furious she was. "Courier-san, this isn't like you." He'd seen the Dullahan angry before, but her anger had never been directed at him with such intensity, the force of her grip alone making him wince.

[What have you done to them?]

Izaya chuckled and tried to walk away, only to get slammed back into the wall by the seething Dullahan. "You'll have to be more specific if you want me to answer your question, because as you may already know, I've done many things to a lot of people."

She grabbed the PDA with one of her shadows and typed with her right hand while keeping the other one firmly wrapped around his neck.

[Don't play dumb!]

"Does that mean that Courier-san thinks I'm smart? Why thank you," Izaya chirped as he raised a hand and tried to unclench Celty's fingers from around his neck, only to wince again when the hold tightened to the point that he was having troubles breathing. Seeing as how he was left with no other option, he tried to grab the switchblade from the pocket of his coat, but his eyes went wide when he couldn't find it and then widened even further when Celty threw the weapon down the stairs leading to the basement. "Was that really necessary?" he asked in a raspy voice, looking askance towards the place where the switchblade had been thrown.

[Yes!]

Izaya's eyes fell on the PDA and he sighed. He had been wrong in thinking that his day couldn't have gotten any worse because it did, the news that Slon wasn't dead turning to ash his already fried nerves. As though that wasn't already bad enough, he had ended up running into the obviously pissed off Dullahan. He glared at her, unable to further maintain his usual calm mask. "Let go, now!" he hissed, his eyes conveying all the anger he felt at that moment.

Celty didn't let go though and instead typed again on her PDA before shoving it into his face. [Tell me what you did to Shizuo.]

Izaya raised his fist and punched her helmet off, the thing hitting the ground with a loud noise that bounced off the walls. "What I did to him? What I did to him?!" he snapped, his outburst surprising her to the point that the strength behind her hold lessened a bit. "What if he did something to me instead? What then? Ah, but Courier-san could never understand."

[What are you trying to say?]

Face morphed into a malicious expression, he glared at Celty, trying to decide whether to tell her or not. He was a curious creature by nature, so to observe a Dullahan as her world got turned upside down would most likely be highly fascinating and perhaps even entertaining. His smirk widened. "You're a monster."

[What does that have to do with anything?!]

Izaya chuckled darkly, his eyes burning with malevolence. "Courier-san would not be able to comprehend what lies beyond the closed door."

[I'm tired of games, Izaya, so start talking!]

"Be careful what you wish for."

[I want to know what's going on!]

"Are you sure you want to know what lies beyond it?" he asked and then chuckled some more when she squeezed his neck tighter. So what if she knew? It wasn't like she would tell anyone. Celty would most likely not even feel sorry for him, and that was fine, because he would never want her pity, but at the very least she would stop harassing him each time they ran into each other. And wouldn't it be amusing if the monster turned out to be human enough to get outraged by Shizuo's actions? With some luck she might even abandon him. It wasn't fair that the beast had so many friends and people who cared about him while Izaya himself had no one. Well, there was Shinra, but Izaya had no idea whether or not he could mend their broken friendship. It was only fair that Shizuo got to lose a friend too. His eyes glowed dangerously as he stared at Celty, his voice dripping malice as he spoke his next words. "Blood, tears and pain are the only things you can find behind it, so knowing all of that, are you still sure that you want to open it?"

[Yes, I still want to know.]

Izaya's smirk widened, his features set into a crazed expression. "All right, I'll tell you, but remember one thing: you asked for it."

[Just tell me already!] she rushed him, black smoky shadows snapping back and forth in a display of pure irritation.

"Ah, but Courier-san might just be too innocent to know what I'm talking about."

[Izaya!]

He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "All right, all right, I'll try to explain in such a way that even you can understand," he said and chuckled some more. "Do you know what Shinra thinks about every time he looks at you, or are you too blind to notice?"

[What are you talking about, you lowlife?]

"Sex, Courier-san, it's called sex, you might have heard of it before," Izaya chirped, thoroughly enjoying the embarrassment that seemed to have washed over the Dullahan, her stiff posture indicating her discomfort. "I won't deny that Shinra loves you, in his own twisted way of course, but he's a man, and it's only natural that he wants more besides your ever pleasant company."

Celty wanted to type something, but instead she changed her mind and lowered the PDA.

"Shizu-chan and I had sex," Izaya said in an equally venomous and sadistic voice, his eyes burning with hatred. He would be lying if he said that he wasn't enjoying her distress.

Celty's fingers trembled as she kept typing and deleting words on her PDA before finally showing it to Izaya.

[Shizuo would never do something like that with you!]

Izaya burst into hysterical laughter, eyes tearing up. Whether it was from laughter or from the sheer embarrassment of what he was about to say next, he didn't know, but he kept on talking. "Ah, ah, but wait, there is a twist! You will probably not like what I'm about to say next, so I'm going to give you one last chance to walk away."

[Talk!]

Ignoring the nauseating feeling burning through the pit of his stomach, as well as the sound of his heart wildly hammering against his rib cage, he swallowed the lump in his throat and took a deep breath. "I didn't consent to it," he said, his quivering voice a testimony of mental anguish. "It was rape, Courier-san."

The shadowy smoke floating around them froze in mid-air.

"Do you know what that is?" Izaya continued, trying to blink away the blurriness in his eyes. "Rape is any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person."

Celty lost her grip on his neck, hand falling limply by her side.

Izaya watched her for a while, wondering what she would do next, but when he realized that she was too shocked to react in any way, he pushed himself away from the wall and went to retrieve his switchblade. He stopped behind her on his way to the door, hands trembling inside the pockets of his coat. "I told you that you wouldn't like it," he said, cracked lips set into a mirthless smile. He then pushed the door open and walked out, leaving Celty alone to gather her jumbled thoughts. Courier-san, what will you do now, hmm?

Chapter 22: The Struggle Within

Izaya rubbed his eyes to get rid of that annoying blurriness of unshed tears as he paused in front of the door to Shinra's apartment. It hadn't been easy to tell Celty what happened, but he was tired of her overall attitude regarding the whole situation and he wanted it to stop. He wasn't naive enough to believe that she would remain her usual self around him after sending her off to deliver Kasuka's beaten body to the brute, but it had still bothered him. There was nothing worse than to get blamed for hurting Shizuo when the beast had been the one to break the rules first. Shizuo was supposed to only beat him to a bloody pulp that night, but the idiot had snapped and had taken things too far.

Izaya knew he deserved bad things happening to him for what he had done to various people over the years, but he was sure that getting brutally raped and then left to die in a filthy alley was not one of them. Had it not been for both Kasuka and Shinra saving him that night, he would've certainly died. There were times when it crossed his mind that it couldn't have been worse than living like this, but he always pushed away those thoughts because he preferred to cling to life even though it was painful. He knew that more suffering awaited him, especially after realizing that he was still affected enough to interrupt his own plans of revenge, but he refused to give up. He raised his hand, timidly knocked on the door and held his breath when he heard the lock turning and saw the door opening.

Shinra stared at him with an unreadable expression for a long time, the stretching silence making Izaya feel extremely uncomfortable. He was about to open his mouth to say something, but the man shot him a nasty glare and moved to close the door.

"Wait!" Izaya screeched and tried to stop Shinra from closing it, only to get his arm trapped between the door and its frame. He grunted as the metal dug into his skin the harder Shinra pushed, but he ignored the pain, his mind set on getting the man to listen to him. "Give me a chance to explain myself," he pleaded.

"I prefer to keep my distance when it comes to armed criminals," Shinra sneered, his voice conveying all the irritation he felt towards the man.

"I'm not armed!"

"Remove your arm before I break it," Shinra warned and pulled the door back a little so that Izaya could free his arm."

"Fine," Izaya hissed through clenched teeth, "but I'm not leaving until we talk."

Shinra shut the door with a lot more force than was necessary and stomped towards the couch in the living room where he flopped down on it and folded his arms in front of his chest. He was still pissed at Izaya for being a bastard, but he was more upset about his fight with Celty than anything else, their conflict resulting in her storming out of the apartment. He hated knowing that she was mad at him, and he hated to see her upset, but if he were to tell her what was really going on, he knew that she would only suffer more than she already was.

He turned his head towards the hallway and wondered if Izaya would really stand there outside his door until the man would be given a chance to explain himself or leave and come back another time. He's not that big of an idiot, he thought before he picked up the remote control and turned the TV on, hoping that he would find something to distract himself with since that was far better than mopping around.

Meanwhile, Izaya stared at the door for a few minutes before sighing and shoving his hands inside the pockets of his coat. He felt really tired and cold, but he'd already made up his mind to stay there until Shinra invited him inside so he sighed dejectedly and leaned with his back against the door. He glanced at the floor beneath him, then at his coat, immediately dismissing the thought of sitting down; he really couldn't afford to ruin this coat too. There was always the fur-trimmed jacket, which he mostly wore when it was warmer outside, but he really preferred the coat over it, especially when the weather was so cold.

He stayed like that for a long time, staring at his phone once in a while and hoping that Ran would call him. He almost dropped it though when it did ring, but the number was not one he recognized.

"Orihara Izaya?" a female voice asked.

"Yes. To whom am I speaking?"

"Vorona."

Izaya had to swallow the lump in his throat in order to be able to speak his next words. "How may I help you?" he asked in a forced cheerful tone.

"Information is needed regarding the last job Orihara-san and Slon-senpai completed. Slon-senpai demanded assistance today, but the information could not be relayed before his death at the hospital during surgery. Data is not sufficient to identify the murderer."

Izaya managed to cover his mouth in time to hide a surprised gasp. If Slon truly was dead and Vorona had no idea who the killer was, then his hide was safe. Did she really have no clue that he was the killer, or was she simply lying in order to catch him off-guard? Either way, it was best if he kept his guard up. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said solemnly.

"Slon-senpai was comrade. His death will be avenged," Vorona stated, sounding determined.

"How much do you know about the job?"

"No data."

"I see. We worked together to find the spies within the Awakusu-Kai who either worked for the Police or for a rival organization. We succeeded in identifying three of them. I'm sure we got all of them, so if the murderer is related in any way to this last case, it makes sense for them to be someone who knew those men. Do you have an email address?"

"Affirmative."

"Message it to me and I'll send you the information tomorrow."

"Your help is appreciated," Vorona said before hanging up.

Izaya stared ahead for a while, phone hanging in hand until he received the message. He wasn't exactly happy about killing Slon, if the man really was dead, but it beat the alternative. As much as he hated Shizuo, he couldn't just stand there and do nothing while the Russian assassin did to Kasuka the same thing which had been done to him. Still, a valuable human life had been lost because of his mistake and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He pocketed the phone and hoped that Ran would call him soon to confirm Slon's death.

He lost track of time as he stood there trying to ignore the weariness, until Shinra suddenly opened the door, causing Izaya to lose his balance and fall backwards with a surprised yelp.

Shinra acted on instinct, hooking his arms underneath Izaya's stretched ones and successfully halting his dangerous descent.

Izaya chuckled as Shinra awkwardly held him, noticing the mocking smile before his vision drifted and their eyes locked. "Thank you for saving my precious behind, kind stranger."

Shinra scoffed, tempted to drop him. "Idiot."

Izaya smiled and got up with a bit of help from his savior. "Does this mean I can come in now?"

"I was going to look for Celty," Shinra said, frowning.

"Your girlfriend can take care of herself."

Shinra glared at him but remained silent. Izaya was right. "Fine, get in," he said, scowling. "I can't believe you're still here," he grumbled.

Izaya pushed Shinra out of the way and dashed towards the kitchen where he picked up a glass and poured himself some much needed water. He greedily gulped it down and placed the glass back on the counter with a satisfied sigh, shrugging when he noticed Shinra's surprised expression. "I was thirsty."

Shinra turned around and went to the living room where he sat down on the couch. "Why are you here?"

Izaya followed him and sat down as well. "I see you replaced the glass doors I broke."

"Yeah, and you owe me money for that by the way."

"Send me the bill."

"And for the couch. It wasn't cheap to remove the blood stains."

"Got it."

Shinra sighed and shifted around uncomfortably. "Say what you have to say and then leave."

"About earlier today..." Izaya started but lost the courage to go on when Shinra glared at him through squinted eyes.

"What about it?" the doctor nearly hissed. "Are you here to complain about how I did a terrible job at patching up your bullet wound?"

"No!" Izaya rushed to answer. "No... I'm here to apologize." Feeling somewhat ashamed, he lowered his head, eyes fixed on his knees. "I'm really sorry about all the stupid things I said and did."

"Oh my, is the great Orihara Izaya seriously apologizing to me? I find it very hard to believe," Shinra said mockingly.

"While I cannot remember everything, I still remember enough, and I know that I owe you an apology... a serious apology." He raised his head and looked him in the eyes. "I truly am sorry."

Shinra's eyes widened in surprise. He knew Izaya well enough to tell that the man was serious this time around, and while he was still pissed at him for even thinking of such a stupid way to make him understand what he'd gone through, he really couldn't stay mad at him when the apology sounded so sincere. He sighed and smiled lazily. "Apology accepted," he said and watched Izaya's genuine smile with some amusement, the man's dull eyes lighting up almost instantly.

"Thank you."

"It's fine, just don't do that again."

Izaya shook his head. "The 'thank you' is not for this alone, it's for everything. Even after all the stupid things I did today, you still helped me when you could've simply walked away, not to mention that you saved my life that night. I would've been dead right now if it wasn't for you," he said, eyes darkening.

To say that Shinra was surprised was an understatement. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Izaya?" he asked with a broad smile on his face, his expression turning into a frown at Izaya's next words.

"I have no idea. Let me know if you find him."

Shinra felt a pang in his chest at seeing Izaya's defeated posture, so he got up, walked over to him and gently squeezed the man's shoulder, noticing with no little amount of surprise that Izaya didn't flinch. He'd felt bad all those other times he'd touched him before, because he could feel the tension underneath the surface, that barely restrain need to pull away, but this time he felt nothing of the sorts. "You'll be fine."

"I don't know about that," Izaya said and abruptly got up, "but thank you for everything."

"Are you leaving?"

Izaya nodded. "I'll see you around," he said and waved as he walked out of the apartment.

Shinra sighed loudly, sat back down and took off his glasses to rub his tired eyes. He felt sorry for Izaya, sorry enough to almost miss the smug bastard he once used to know. This new Izaya was nicer, and less of a dick, but Shinra couldn't stand that constant sadness that seemed to emanate from the man.

He heard the door open and he clumsily put on the glasses before turning around, thinking that Izaya might've forgotten something, only to be greeted with the sight of his beloved Celty. "Hey, are you―" he started, but lost his voice when he saw her wrap herself inside a cocoon of her own pitch black smoke. "Celty...?" he said weakly as he approached the black mass, a surprised yelp escaping his lips when he ended up getting pulled inside, his beloved squashing him into a hug and clinging to him as though he was her lifeline. "I'm sorry for snapping at you today," he said as he ran his hand up and down her back. He knew that she was crying because her whole body was trembling in his arms, her clenched into fists hands clinging to the back of his white lab coat.

She wanted to tell him that it was not his fault, that she now understood why he had never told her, but she couldn't get her body to react. All she could do was cling to him; cling to the man who loved her enough to hide the truth from her in order to not hurt her, even if that meant she would be mad at him. It all made sense now, Shinra being protective of Izaya, as well as the hatred and rage he expressed in regard to Shizuo. She knew something bad must've happened to make him react that way, something terrible enough to affect the usual passive Kishitani Shinra, but it had never crossed her mind that Shizuo could've taken things so far. It was hard to believe that Shizuo would rape the Informant, but she knew that Izaya was not lying because of the incident she had witnessed earlier that day. She clearly remembered Shizuo saying how everything was his fault and how he deserved to die, so for the man to go to such extreme measures meant that something really bad must've happened, something horrendous enough to make him want to end his life.

She also never expected to feel sorry for Izaya, but she did. Those words he spoke in that broken, defeated tone, as well as those pained eyes and barely restrained tears had sliced into her heart as though they were sharp knives. It was a horrible situation in which Shinra ended up losing one of the two most important connections he had made with humans, and Celty had no idea how to make him feel better. There was also Shizuo, the man she always thought of as her best friend, and he was suffering too, she was certain of it. Truth be told, she felt sorry for all three of them. She held onto Shinra tighter, wishing that all of it was a bad dream from which she would soon wake up, but she knew it was real and that broke her heart into a million pieces. She wished she had the power to turn back time, but she didn't possess such an ability, so instead she clung to Shinra tighter, drowning into the warmth of his body and the comfort of his embrace.

"I hope you will forgive me one day," he said, his voice sorrowful, almost pleading, but at the same time loving and hopeful.

Celty unclenched one hand and gently rubbed his back, hoping that her gesture would convey her feelings inside the darkness of the cocoon.

"Thank you," he said, and with those two simple words she knew that he understood her better than anyone in the world. She remembered Izaya's words: "Shinra loves you," and she knew them to be true. She was glad to have met Shinra, and lucky to have him in her life. I think I love him too, she realized with some surprise, the thought bubbling from underneath the violent waves of confused feelings.

Chapter 23: The Apparition

So cold, Izaya thought dejectedly as he walked from the subway station back to his apartment. He should've taken a taxi, but he wasn't in a rush to get home, not when his formerly beloved sanctuary was now nothing more than a place where he spent so many sleepless nights, his mind plagued by nightmares as the memories of the pain and the fear Shizuo had inflicted upon him kept him twisting and turning in his bed. The beast had not only invaded his body, but his mind as well, and that's why he wanted to break him just as he himself had been broken. It took him a long time to get Slon interested in Kasuka, and yet, after so much time and effort spent, he hadn't been able through with it.

Having Slon do to Kasuka the same thing that Shizuo had done to him would've been the perfect way to break the beast once and for all, but sadly he ended up ruining his own plan. Izaya hadn't know the meaning of the word fear until that fateful night, at least not in the same sense that most people would describe it. Whenever the beast used to chase him around Ikebukuro, what he felt was excitement. Most of the times he was careful to pull the strings from a safe distance, but sometimes he loved taking chances, and fighting a monster was always a risk, the possibility of ending up with more than a broken limb being quite high. While it was fun to send people after Shizuo and watch as the beast wiped the floor with his opponents, there was just something fascinating about seeing up close how that scowling expression would morph into one of pure rage.

Izaya knew that no one could and would not rile the beast as much as he did, because Shizuo was not someone to be played with, which is why most people didn't even dare entertain such thoughts, but he was Orihara Izaya and fighting a beast like Heiwajima Shizuo only served to prove how superior he was when compared to the rest of humanity. It really came as no surprise when he heard that he was considered to be one of Ikebukuro's strongest, because he was, after all, one of the few people who could stand up to Heiwajima Shizuo and walk away mostly unharmed. He had been wrong though, thinking that he wouldn't get hurt, and because of his mistake he ended up paying a heavy price.

To think that he would feel pity for the beast's emotionless freak of a brother was ludicrous, shameful really. He felt like screaming for falling prey to such a pathetic human emotion, for failing to take the perfect revenge. The whole situation was infuriating, it was the only way he could describe it. Stupid, weak, coward, former shadow of the great Orihara Izaya, how dare you take away the only thing that could've made everything go back to normal?  He sighed and ran a hand through his now too long hair, realizing that he should probably get a haircut soon. At least he was close to his apartment and there was nothing more that he wanted to do than to get some sleep, or at least try to anyway. Just lying in bed would be enough, his tired body in serious need of some rest.

It was long after midnight when he approached his apartment building, the sight of Kasuka still dressed in his clothes and sitting on the steps shocking him enough to make him stop in his tracks. His eyes narrowed in contempt and he had to force himself to approach him. "Why are you here?" he hissed after he stopped in front of the beast's brother.

Kasuka didn't say anything. Instead, he put down the now empty plastic container of the pudding he had just finished eating, grabbed a paper bag from the plastic one he had hanging around the arm with the broken wrist, and then moved to hand it over to Izaya.

Izaya's brows furrowed in confusion. "What―"

"Take it," Kasuka said, emphasizing his words with a flick of the wrist.

Izaya stared at it for a while before he scowled and finally grabbed it with more force than was necessary. "What is this?" he asked, cautiously turning the bag around.

"A bun," Kasuka answered, his voice as monotone as always.

"A bun..." Izaya repeated, dumbfounded, his eyes wide as he stared at Kasuka.

"Yes."

His eyes traveled to the bag again and he opened it slowly, as though he was afraid that something would pop right out of it and bite his hand off, only to blink in astonishment when he really found a bun inside. Flabbergasted, he looked at Kasuka again. "Why are you giving me a bun?"

Kasuka finally raised his head, half-closed brown eyes meeting wide red-brown ones. "There was pudding too, but I got really hungry while waiting so I ate it."

Izaya blinked some more. His eyes narrowed and he glared at Kasuka with outright suspicion, his lips quirking up in a manic smile. "You poisoned this, didn't you?"

Kasuka looked at him impassively before picking up the empty plastic container, putting it inside the plastic bag, and then getting up and looking Izaya straight in the eyes. "I'm not a murderer, Orihara-san, but if you really must know why I gave you a bun, the answer is quite simple."

Izaya folded his arms in front of his chest, bag still hanging in his left hand. "Please, do tell."

"I thought you might be hungry, that's all."

"Why would you think that?" he asked, voice low and dangerous.

"Because I was too."

Izaya had to shake his head in order to snap back to reality. Something so crazy was obviously not happening, which meant that he must've passed out somewhere between Ikebukuro and Shinjuku; it was the only reasonable explanation. He had to be dreaming, because there was no way in hell that Shizuo's brother would show up dressed in his clothes and offer him a bun. No, not happening. I have to wake―

"Orihara-san, are you all right?" Kasuka asked when he saw the Informant shaking his head and mumbling something unintelligible.

"Gah!" Izaya nearly screamed and took a step backwards, seriously starting to question his sanity. No matter how much he pinched himself or shook his head, Heiwajima Kasuka was still there, which only meant that he was, in fact, not dreaming. "Why are you here?!" he asked in an embarrassingly high-pitched tone.

"I'm here to talk," Kasuka said as he dusted himself off.

Izaya chuckled darkly, eyebrow twitching in annoyance. "Ah, so you're here to complain about how I almost got you raped."

"No," Kasuka said before he went to drop the bag into the nearest trash can. He wasn't surprised that Izaya was suspicious of him, but the man was clearly overreacting. He couldn't really blame him though, because as an Informant, it was Izaya's job to be suspicious of everyone and everything. Once he got rid of the trash, he went back and extended his hand.

Izaya glowered, angry at not only the beast's brother, but also at himself for being unable to read such an odd creature. "What?!" he snapped, his eyes boring holes into the pale, yet slightly bruised hand.

"If you don't want to eat it, give it back."

Izaya quirked an eyebrow. "It really is just a bun?"

Kasuka nodded.

"Prove it," Izaya challenged him, smirking dangerously as he pulled the bun out of the bag and handed half of it to the emotionless monster who kept staring at him as though everything was perfectly normal.

Kasuka took a bite out of it and chewed slowly, his eyes never leaving Izaya's face. "Orihara-san, did you really think that I had poisoned it?"

Izaya tried to keep a straight face, but it was hard to do so in front of such an emotionless freak, so instead he smiled sardonically. "Would it be so wrong of me to assume such a thing? I believe that you would go to any lengths to protect your brother, just as he would for you. Monsters really do stick together, don't they?" He was hoping that his comment would get a reaction out of Kasuka, but the only thing the emotionless creature did was stare at him indifferently while eating the bun. Izaya had never wanted to bash someone's head in as much as he wanted right at that moment. It really surprised him how different the young Heiwajima was from the beast.

"Your turn," Kasuka said and waited to see what the other would do. He expected Izaya to be more composed, but the man was so easy to read that Kasuka was having a hard time believing this was the same monster Shizuo had kept complaining about for years.

Izaya stared at the bun, lips set into a thin smile. It was obviously a challenge and Orihara Izaya was not one to back down. If the bun had indeed been poisoned, Kasuka would've started showing signs, emotionless freak or not. No one would be able to stay indifferent in the face of death, especially when it came to poison, which was supposedly very painful, or at least that's what he'd heard. He made a mental note to seek information on different types of poison and their effects as soon as he had some free time. Unless, of course, the freak was planning to take both of them out with a type of poison with delayed effects. He gave that idea some thought before he dismissed it once he concluded that Kasuka's death would break the beast, which meant that the younger Heiwajima would not do such a thing if it meant hurting his brother, even if that meant losing the perfect chance to keep Shizuo safe from his nemesis. "You know, I dislike sweets," Izaya said, now slightly entertained by the whole situation. "Don't you find it amusing how the person I despise the most in the whole wide world loves them so much?"

"What do you like?" Kasuka asked. He could not comprehend how anyone could hate sweets.

"I prefer my food to taste bitter," Izaya said and bit into the bun, nose scrunched up in disgust. He unhappily chewed on it and then swallowed as though it had been the hardest thing he had to do in his entire life.

"I can't say I'm surprised," Kasuka commented, completely unaffected by the glare thrown his way.

"What are you trying to say, Kasuka-kun?"

"People who love sweets tend to be more kind and agreeable towards others."

Izaya burst out into laughter, highly amused to hear the beast's brother talk about food. "Are you saying that you and your monstrous brother are kind and agreeable? Ahh ha ha ha! In that case, how would you describe a person who prefers bitter food?"

"Adventurous. Such a person enjoys taking risks. You ate the bun, didn't you?"

With a lazy smile on his face, Izaya wiped his hands together to get rid of any remnants of sugar that might've still stuck to his fingers and turned his attention back to Kasuka. His taste buds might not have been happy at the choice of food, but his previously empty stomach was rejoicing. In fact, eating that half bun made him realize just how hungry he really was. "Thank you for the food. Your gift was most gracious," he said and gave Kasuka a mock bow.

"You're welcome." Kasuka was not at all offended by the gesture. If Izaya thought that he could rile him up, the man was gravely mistaken.

"Oriharaaaaa-san! How are you?"

Izaya turned towards the newcomer, immediately recognizing the annoying voice as belonging to his drunkard rich neighbor. "Harada-san, how have you been?" he asked politely, trying not to scrunch his nose in disgust as the heavy smell of alcohol hit him.

"Good, good. Let me introduce you to... what is your name sweetheart?" Harada asked the woman who was accompanying him.

A prostitute, thought Izaya.

"Violet," she said and winked at Kasuka.

Of course. "Nice to meet you! Now, if you don't mind, I have some things to take care of," Izaya said as he grabbed Kasuka by the arm to pull him inside the building, only to stop in his tracks when Harada reached out and grabbed Kasuka's broken wrist, a barely audible grunt being the only indication that the younger Heiwajima was in pain. Ah, as much as I love to think of you as a monster, you are only human after all. Kasuka couldn't break him in two as though it was nothing, nor could he grab the idiot who was hurting him and fling him all the way to the other side of the street like Shizuo could.

"I think I'm seeing double―hic!"

"No, you're not, Harada-san, so how about you release my guest?" Izaya said, his voice as sweet as ever while his eyes were glaring daggers at the pathetic excuse for a human being that was his neighbor. He assumed the man must've sensed his murderous intent because the drunkard released Kasuka and rushed inside the apartment building while laughing nervously and apologizing. Izaya turned towards Kasuka, grabbed him by the forearm, and pulled up the coat's sleeve to inspect the damage. "Why haven't you gone to the hospital yet?"

"I haven't had the time." Between Izaya knocking him unconscious a second time and Shizuo clinging to him as though he was afraid to let him go, the broken wrist had been the least of his worries. It had taken ages to get Shizuo to fall asleep and a while longer to actually manage to get away without waking him up, retrieve the DVD that Izaya had sent and then sneak out of the apartment.

On the other hand, Izaya thought it was ironic how Slon ended up breaking Kasuka's right wrist just as Shizuo had broken his. He pulled the sleeve back and released him. "You wanted to talk, so follow me," he said and entered the apartment building, Kasuka immediately trailing after him. He ended up stopping though when his phone rang, his hand quickly flying to the pocket of his coat.

"Should I leave?"

"No, stay," Izaya said when he saw that Ran was the one calling him. He pressed the button and moved the phone to his ear.

"I found him," Ran said, smugness evident in his voice.

"In that case, congratulations are in order." He tried to sound casual, but his heart was wildly slamming itself against his rib cage.

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On whether you wanted the guy dead or alive."

"Alive, obviously. I had some information he requested, and because we've been working together for a while now, I wanted to help him."

Ran chuckled, as though he had just caught Izaya lying through his teeth. "What you meant to say was that you wanted the Russian assassin to owe you one."

Funny enough, Izaya was lying through his teeth, just not about the thing that Ran had assumed in his stupidity. "Guilty as charged."

"Heh, I knew it, bastard. You never do anything for free."

"You know me too well."

"How did you know that he'd be in a hospital?"

Izaya sighed in annoyance, as though the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. "He wasn't answering his phone no matter how many times I called, so I figured that something must've gone wrong."

"Well, he's dead."

"I see. It's a shame, he was a skilled assassin. Can you get me a copy of the death certificate, just to make sure that it's him?"

"You're fucking annoying, just so you know. I expect extra payment for wasting time on this shit."

"You will have it as soon as you email me what I have requested."

"Tch! Fine!" Ran snapped and ended the call.

Izaya was somewhat relieved that Slon had died. He really didn't want to have an assassin seeking revenge on him, but at the same time he was unhappy about having killed one of his humans. "Slon is dead." He watched Kasuka to see how he'd react, but the emotionless freak gave no reaction whatsoever, so instead he turned around and walked towards the elevator, almost curious to hear what Heiwajima Kasuka had to say. Somehow, he had a feeling that it was going to be a very long night.

Chapter 24: Grisly Reminder

No matter how long he contemplated, Izaya could not comprehend why Kasuka would seek out the man who had attempted to hurt him in such a dreadful manner. He watched as his guest took off the coat and sat down on the couch, completely at ease as though he couldn't even envision the idea that his host could harm him if he so wished. Kasuka seemed to be just as unpredictable as his brother and Izaya hated that because he didn't know how to react to the unforeseeable words and actions of the two Heiwajimas. Orihara Izaya was supposed to be the strategist, the puppeteer who dwelt in the shadows and who set the stage and hid behind the curtain from where he could glimpse at the play as the events unfolded in such a way that would either benefit or entertain him. He was supposed to foresee what would most likely happen by predicting the moves ahead of time, yet he couldn't do the same when it came to Shizuo which was why he had attempted to hurl him on to the chessboard by using Kasuka. Unfortunately, he himself had been the one to cut the play short, and now, because of his own foolishness, he was stuck having to deal with yet another unpredictable element.

He glimpsed at Kasuka's back as he placed his own coat on the office chair and then walked to the couch and sat down as well. It was a strange sight to see Hanejima Yuuhei wearing his clothes, all bruised up and injured. Kasuka always looked so flawless on TV, which was probably the main reason why his sisters were so obsessed with him, but the Kasuka before him looked terrible, the split lip and the bruises on his jaw and neck from where Slon had punched and held him down almost making him unrecognizable. Did it have to be the right wrist too, he thought dejectedly, suddenly feeling really annoyed that Kasuka was wearing his clothes because it reminded him so much of the broken and bleeding Izaya from back then. "You know, Kasuka-kun, I'm still intrigued by the fact that you haven't changed your clothes yet."

"Just Kasuka is enough, Orihara-san."

"In that case, call me Izaya."

Kasuka nodded, his eyes drifting over to the table where a combination of Chess, Othello, and Shogi pieces were set on a Japanese Go board.

"Interested?" Izaya inquired, smirking, his eyes glowing in amusement. He always found it entertaining to watch people trying to figure out what he was trying to do with such a weird combination of pieces.

Kasuka nodded, his eyes scanning the board and analyzing each piece in order to find its true meaning and purpose.

"Don't bother trying to figure out how it's played. The rules I play by are beyond normal humans."

Kasuka's attention turned back to Izaya, the Informant's sardonic smile a clear indication that he was looking down on him. Is this how you look at my brother each time you see him? Knowing Shizuo, there really was no wonder that the blond would try to wipe that annoying smirk off the man's face with a punch, a trash can, a stop sign or a vending machine. Unfortunately for Izaya, such attitude had zero effect on him. He looked at the board again and then back at Izaya. "I was more interested in knowing which piece is supposed to represent me."

Izaya's eyes widened in disbelief, the emotionless freak succeeding in surprising him yet again. "That's an interesting interpretation. Care to explain how you've reached such a conclusion?"

Kasuka stared blankly at him. "Maybe another time. Right now I'd prefer to talk about something else."

Red eyes narrowed dangerously and he barely succeeded in hiding his annoyance. "As you wish," he finally said and shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Let's cut straight to the subject. Why are you here?"

There were many reasons as to why Kasuka was there and not one was less important than the other, but he had to start from somewhere, so after some thinking he decided to start with the most logical choice. "I don't like to judge a person based on rumors alone, so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt," he said, hoping to get to know the man that Shizuo hated enough to go to such terrifying lengths in order to make him suffer.

"You're willing to give me... the benefit of the doubt," Izaya spoke slowly before he burst into laughter, the Heiwajima brat's answer making him laugh so hard that his side hurt. "Ahh ha ha ha!"

Kasuka continued to stare impassively. "Yes." He wasn't expecting his answer to provoke such a reaction, so he was slightly surprised by the outburst. The Informant truly was a strange man.

Izaya laughed for a long time. That was the only way he could react to his guest's sheer audacity to assume that he would ever care about his opinion. "I undoubtedly believe that you have misunderstood something. I do not, nor have I ever cared what people think of me," he said and threw Kasuka a disgusted look. "Especially the beast's brother."

Kasuka felt something, which didn't happen very often, but he guessed that it was a sliver of annoyance, because there he was, trying to get to know Izaya a bit better, yet all the man did was mock him. "Does lying to yourself help you sleep better at night?" he asked in the same monotone voice, Izaya's thin smile an obvious sign that he had struck a nerve.

"As a matter of fact, I do sleep better at night now that the wounds your brother had inflicted on my body have mostly healed." He was hoping that Kasuka would at least wince at the confession, but the monster looked unaffected, as though he was doing it on purpose just to spite him. "If I cared about what people thought of me, I would be a much nicer person, don't you agree? And let's be honest here, I'm anything but nice. You should know that better than anyone, especially after today." The corners of his lips quirked upwards into a sadistic smile, his eyes roaming over the bruises adorning the previously unmarred skin. He had no doubt that Shizuo had suffered after seeing his brother's beaten body.

Kasuka knew that Izaya was no saint, but neither was he the demon his brother made him out to be. "We will get to that a bit later," he said, clearly dismissing Izaya's attempt to change the topic. "I know for a fact that you care what people think of you." Of course Izaya cared, he had witnessed it with his own eyes.

Izaya's pulse sped up when he realized what Kasuka was talking about, but he refused to look affected. His hands balled into fists and he smiled, a brittle smile that could not conceal the barely suppressed anger he felt bubbling inside of him. The fact that he was feeling faint from the lack of food, dehydration and the injuries he had received earlier that day certainly did not help.

Kasuka immediately noticed Izaya's stiff posture. "If you didn't care, you would've let me call an ambulance that night."

Izaya's blood ran cold. "Shut up," he said weakly, his voice barely loud enough for Kasuka to hear. His previously tightly-clenched fists slackened and the fury he had felt until then was replaced by unadulterated shame.

"If you didn't care what people thought of you, you would've reported my brother to the police," Kasuka continued, noticing how the man's previous pale complexion turned even paler, "but you didn't, because you were ashamed, because you didn't want people to know that you had been raped." He knew that he should stop, but flashbacks of Shizuo trying to thrust that knife into his heart kept appearing into his mind.

Izaya's expression froze into one of utter mortification and he was overcome with nausea, the queasiness burning through the pit of his stomach making him feel a thousand times worse than before. "Shut up," he said again, this time a bit louder. Who in their right mind would want others to know? It had taken all of his courage just to tell Celty. Jaw stiffening, he looked away. He could already imagine the stares, the whispered behind his back words about how he deserved it, about how the beast did a good job in teaching him his place. He loved his humans, yet they would most likely rejoice at the news of his suffering. His humans hated him.They can nev―

"And as though that wasn't bad enough, the one who raped you is none other than your most hated ene―"

"Shut up!" Izaya shouted in a loud piercing cry before he grabbed the switchblade he held inside the pocket of his pants and threw himself at the monster who dared to remind him of the things he so badly wished to erase from his memory. He could feel his previously frozen blood melt and start to boil in his veins. He yanked Kasuka's head backwards with a trembling hand, slender fingers tightly clenching in black silky hair and sharp blade digging into the bruised throat. "Shut The Fuck Up," he hissed, emphasizing each word with a tug on that black hair that was as silky as his own used to be, before he ended up neglecting his forever tainted body because he couldn't even stand to look at it without feeling shame and disgust. He raised one knee and placed it on the couch for better leverage, effectively trapping the bastard who dared to say those things in such an emotionless tone when all he could remember was the fear, the helplessness and the horror of it all.

Kasuka stood there motionless, not even bothering to fight back. He knew that he had gone too far. "I shouldn't have said that, I apologize. Remembering that day must be very painful for you."

Izaya's already furious expression turned wild and he dug the blade deeper into the bruised throat, watching as the blood started to stream from the not so small cut. "Shut up! I don't need your pity!" he snarled, his red eyes burning with both hatred and fury. He knew that he was slipping and that he needed to compose himself, but it was hard to do so when all he wanted to do was to brutally murder the creature before him. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down, at the same time realizing that he needed to switch the focus of the conversation before he really ended up losing it and killing the freak. He remembered Kasuka's brief look of disgust when Slon had kissed him and he hoped that he could use that to get the little monster to react in some way. He refused to be the only one to lose control. "You're the pitiful one for having to grow up with such a monster," he said and tugged at the raven locks trapped between his fingers. "It must've been really hard on you."

"He's not a monster," Kasuka said while ignoring Izaya's conceited look.

Izaya sneered and wrenched the freak's hair, trying to inflict as much pain as possible, just like the beast had done to him that night in the alley. "Tell me, does pretending to not have any emotions help you sleep better at night?"

"I'm not pretending," Kasuka said flatly, the only sign of discomfort he showed at having his hair harshly pulled back being the tension he felt in his jaw.

"Maa, maa, we both know that you're lying," said Izaya in a malicious tone while smacking the flat edge of the bloody blade against Kasuka's cheek. "I think that you were so scared of your brother that you preferred to not react in any way just to avoid getting beat up by him."

"That's not what happened."

Izaya dragged the blade down the bruised jaw and back to the bloody throat. "You've been pretending for so long that you can only express yourself through acting now. Either that or you're still scared of Shizu-chan. Which one is it, hmm?"

"Neither is true."

Izaya softly tutted. "I told you that you can't lie to me, not after I've seen that look of disgust cross your face when Slon kissed you." Not that he could blame him of course, but it was proof that Kasuka could feel even though what he felt at the time had been pain and disgust.

Kasuka watched him carefully, trying to figure out if the man was naive enough to really believe that he was lying. Apparently, he was, if the smug look on Izaya's face was any indication. Orihara Izaya couldn't have been more wrong. "Disgust is merely a natural reaction, nothing more, nothing less," he finally said even though he knew that the man would hate his truthful answer.

"Just answer my question!" he hissed. "Are you, or are you not, scared of Shizuo?"

Kasuka nearly sighed, tired of being asked the same question that Shizuo has asked him on numerous occasions before. Why is it so hard to believe that he doesn't scare me? "I've never been scared of him," he said, confident brown eyes gazing straight into red-brown ones. 

Izaya's fingers clenched in Kasuka's hair and he pulled at it sharply, a low grunt being his only reward. "Liar!"

Had this been a scene from one of his movies, Kasuka would've rolled his eyes, but it wasn't, so there was no need for him to act. "I can't tell you something that isn't true, no matter how badly you want it to be so."

"I bet you're still wearing my clothes because you also wanted to see him suffer, because you really hate him for turning you into this emotionless freak. Ne, ne, tell me, was it fun to see him cry? Ahh, it was so entertaining to hear his sobs over the phone!" said Izaya, eyes staring into space as he remember his conversation with Shizuo. His plan had failed, but at least he'd had the pleasure of hearing the beast cry. A delightful shiver ran down his spine.

Kasuka watched him impassively, but he figured that the man deserved an explanation so he decided to answer the question. "I kept them on because you saved me, and even though you were the one who kidnapped me in the first place, I forgive you, because I understand why you did it. I believe we are even now."

"Even?! Ahh ha ha ha! We'll never be even!" Izaya hissed, his voice dripping venom. "You might've saved me that night, but by doing so you kept your brother from going to jail." He leaned in closer until his cracked lips were hovering next to Kasuka's ear. "There would've been enough evidence to send him to jail for the rest of his life. Shizu-chan really is a protozoan for leaving me there to die after..." and here he took a pause to swallow the lump in his throat before continuing in a shaky voice, "after he c-came inside m-me." He inwardly cursed, hating himself for letting it show just how affected he still was by what had happened that night.

"Shizuo can't think rationally once he succumbs to his rage." Just like that time at the bakery store. Shizuo had ended up hurting not only the thugs, but also the woman he was trying to save. Kasuka closed his eyes, Shizuo's pained expression and the guilt eating at him the second he regained his composure forever being ingrained into his memory. It was one of the many similar unfortunate events Kasuka had witnessed over the years. He had no doubts that his brother was still blaming himself for each and every one of them.

"Tch! That's a pathetic excuse! Yes, I kidnapped you and then I saved you, so we could say that we are even, but are you trying to say that you wearing my clothes equates to the suffering I felt while getting brutally raped by that monster? No, Kasuka, that's not even close."

"You used me to deceive my brother, and by doing so you taught him despair. That should be enough." He partially blamed himself for what happened to Shizuo, his brother almost losing his life because of his own foolishness and overconfidence when he'd followed the Informant earlier that day.

Izaya's jaw clenched, teeth grinding hard against each other. The freak's audacity was unbelievable. "I'm not done with him," he threatened, his features twisting into a crazed expression.

"You are done."

"No, I'm not." He was so angry that he was almost seeing red, and that wasn't helping because the impulse to plunge the switchblade into Kasuka's throat kept growing stronger by the second.

"You are," Kasuka said, his half-closed eyes narrowing fractionally.

Izaya leaned in closer until their noses were almost touching. "You're either extremely brave or extremely stupid, coming into my house after everything that happened and expecting to leave this place alive. I could slit your throat right now, gift wrap your corpse and then send it to your brother."

"I advise against it," Kasuka said, already having considered the possibility.

Izaya scoffed. "And why should I listen to you, hmm?"

"Because if anything happens to me, you will be the prime suspect, I made sure of it. I doubt that even you could get away with murdering Hanejima Yuuhei."

Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits. "What did you do?"

"I simply made sure that the DVD you sent Shizuo got into the right hands."

Izaya's previously annoyed expression morphed into one of pure rage and he dug the blade deeper into Kasuka's throat, more blood starting to seep from the cut. Now that he was seeing Kasuka up close, he couldn't help but notice how the freak looked so much like Shizuo and that only served to piss him off even more. They both had the same jawline, and even though their eyes were slightly different, Izaya was sure that if Kasuka dyed his hair blonde and schooled his expression into a scowl, he would be Shizuo's spitting image. Disgusting. His lips began to tilt upwards into a maniacal grin as he began slicing the skin, starting from the cut on the throat and going up towards the jawline. "Perhaps I should destroy this pretty face of yours, so that you will no longer be the Hanejima Yuuhei people seem to love so much."

"The―" Kasuka started, but stopped and waited for Izaya to ease up on the slicing so that he could talk. "I will tell you the truth."

Izaya chuckled darkly and pressed the flat edge of the blade against Kasuka's jaw, smearing blood on the purple bruises. "I knew you'd see it my way."

"The truth is that sometimes people are exactly what they seem," Kasuka said and grabbed Izaya's wrist to pull the knife away from his face, his opponent barely having enough time to react before he knocked their heads together hard enough to momentarily stun him.

Izaya's vision turned black from the impact, his already weak body unable to recover in time to stop Kasuka from yanking the switchblade out of his hand.

Kasuka elbowed him in the face with all the strength he could muster, the action being followed by a well-placed kick to the stomach which sent his opponent flying over the black coffee table placed in front of the couch.

A shrill was ripped from Izaya's throat as he fell on the Go board, the Chess pieces painfully digging into his back. He tried to get up but Kasuka was already on him, the man crushing his right hand between a knee and the table while his own switchblade, now in enemy hands, was being pressed into his throat. Kasuka's strength was nowhere near Shizuo's, but the blows he'd received left his head reeling. He could hear his own labored breathing, the sound of it so loud in his ears that it was almost deafening. He moaned in pain and forced one eye open, his heartbeat immediately quickening when the gravity of the situation he was in finally dawned on him.

Kasuka watched him for a few moments with cold eyes before he hunched lower until his lips were beside Izaya's ear, his hot breath making the Informant shudder. "The truth is that I'm more of a monster than you and Shizuo will ever be."

Chapter 25: Scorpion Flower

Izaya barely succeeded in suppressing a whimper at the too familiar situation. He flinched when that silky brown hair touched his face as the freak moved away from his ear and he simply could not stand the way in which the man looked at him with those empty eyes that reminded him so much of dead fish eyes. His free hand twitched, the desperate need to just get away from there incinerating him like wildfire, but he didn't dare move, not when the beast's brother could easily snuff his life as though it was nothing. He didn't want to die. He didn't care how much he'd suffer if he kept on living, or whether he'd go to hell for all the bad things he'd done over the years, because even an eternity of suffering was worth knowing that he would still exist. 

Liar, said a voice from a deep and dark corner of his mind, how can you still say that after you've known despair? Flashbacks of that night slammed into his mind with brutal force and he knew that he couldn't go through something like that again no matter how much he liked to believe that he could endure any kind of torment. Not again. Not again. Never again! Overcome with nausea, his vision flickered, and an intense shudder, something akin to terror, ran down his spine. "D-don't..." he said brokenly, his quivering voice giving away the fear he felt seeping through his veins.

Kasuka's eyes widened and he felt a pang in his chest, something that he had never felt before with such intensity for anyone in his life besides Shizuo. "I would never..." he started, finally realizing what he was doing to Izaya. He removed the switchblade from the pale throat and shoved it into the pocket of his pants before grabbing Izaya by the T-shirt and pulling him up, the Informant's eyelids fluttering open as his boneless body was hauled up from on top of the table and dropped on the couch. Kasuka pushed away the Go Board and the different pieces scattered all over the table and sat down in front of Izaya, giving the man a few moments to recover from the shock. He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again. It was always so easy for him to forget that others weren't as emotionally numb as he was and that something which wouldn't normally affect him could very well be devastating for someone else. "I didn't mean to... I didn't think you'd see it that way."

Izaya took a few more sharp intakes of breath before finally calming down enough to be able to speak. He raised a shaky hand to his face and felt warm liquid seeping from his nose, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth serving as proof that Kasuka had hit him really hard. His laugh came out rather pathetic, but he didn't care, not when his whole body was still thrumming with fear. "What happened?"

"You wanted to know the truth," Kasuka said, realizing in hindsight that he shouldn't have hit him so hard.

Izaya straightened his back with some effort and raised his head to stare at Kasuka. The thing before him was a monster, and not just because he always looked emotionless, but even so, the aforementioned monster knew when to stop, unlike the brute that was his brother. "That's not what I meant."

"I know. You must be surprised." Kasuka lowered his head, eyes fixed on the bloody hand he used to wipe away the crimson liquid flowing down his neck.

Izaya nodded. "I know you do your own stunts, but those moves... how?" Kasuka's attacks had been precise which meant that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Kasuka stared impassively at his hand, the blood smeared all over his palm bringing back memories of a time when seeing his own blood was not that unusual. "Shizuo made many enemies as we grew up and some of the people he beat up couldn't let go, so they came after me." He always associated those memories with physical pain, but that was it, because he couldn't remember ever feeling fear during any of those encounters with his brother's enemies.

Izaya's mouth fell open, unable to hide his shock at hearing Kasuka's confession, but at the same time it made perfect sense because he knew that humans were petty enough to go after someone weaker when they couldn't bring down the one they really wanted to destroy. He cringed, realizing that he had done the exact same thing as those pathetic creatures. No, it wasn't the same. He'd wanted to break Shizuo; it was the only way. It wouldn't have been impossible to find a way to physically hurt the beast, but what he wanted was to inflict emotional pain, which is why he had decided to use Kasuka in the first place. He was curious about one thing though. "Does he know any of this?"

"I never told him. The more I got attacked, the better I became at fighting, and after a while they gave up when they realized that I was no easy prey." He could still clearly remember their unadulterated rage each time they beat him up and instead of the crying and begging they were hoping to get, all they received in return was silence. He had screamed out in pain a few times, a natural response to intense physical agony, but that had been the most those cowards ever got from him. He wasn't calling them cowards because they were too scared to face Shizuo, but because they always ganged up on him. They knew he didn't possess Shizuo's strength, yet they were still too scared to face him alone.

Izaya's eyes roamed Kasuka's hunched formed. The freak was not weak at all and that somehow explained how he was able to hit Slon so many times before the assassin finally succeeded in immobilizing him. "Still, how come Shizuo never noticed?" He didn't remember ever hearing about the brute going around town beating up people for hurting his precious little brother.

"I always warned them not touch my face if they didn't want my brother to find out, and because they were cowards they listened to my request most of the times." It didn't always work though, so the few times he ended up with a bloody nose or a purple eye he told his parents that he'd gotten mugged by older kids, and no matter how much Shizuo asked him to describe his assailants, Kasuka pretended to not remember how they looked like. The bruises on his body were never a problem to hide, and even though it often hurt for days on end, he could easily ignore the pain and keep a straight face in front of his family.

Oh... that explains it, thought Izaya. No matter how much he cut into that pale throat, Kasuka didn't move a muscle, but the second he threatened to cut up his face the freak ended up losing it and attacking him. It made sense that those many years of physical abuse at the hands of the people who hated Shizuo―but didn't dare fight him fair and square―took a toll on Kasuka. Perhaps some of those idiots he sent after Shizuo back when they were still in high school had ended up taking revenge on Kasuka because they couldn't bring down Ikebukuro's beast. He couldn't understand how the protozoan had never noticed though. Has the idiot always been this blind? "You should've done something about it."

"Like what? Never go out again?"

Izaya thought he could hear bitterness in Kasuka's voice, but he couldn't be sure. It still made no sense that he'd keep quiet about something so serious. "Why didn't you ever tell him?"

Why? The answer is so simple, but you will most likely never understand, he thought as he raised his head and looked Izaya in the eyes. "I didn't want him to blame himself for what was happening to me. I couldn't risk it. What if he ended up killing someone because of me?"

"That would've been his fault."

Kasuka shook his head. "I often blame myself for the way he turned out, because my lack of reaction in general annoyed him more than anything else in the world. You said that I was pretending to be emotionless in order to not provoke him, but you were wrong, because the first time he lifted the fridge and tried to hurl it at me for eating his pudding, I didn't even blink. I believe it was my indifferent attitude in general which drove him to start lifting heavy objects and threaten me with them just to get me to react."

Izaya could hardly believe what he was hearing. When humans sense danger, they try to run away, yet this thing in front of him didn't even seem to understand the concept of fear very well. It was like it had no sense of self-preservation. Something was very wrong with Kasuka, of that he was certain. Fascinating.

Kasuka had never told anyone the truth. He wanted to be human, but at the same time he wasn't certain that he could deal with all the emotions that came with it. He had ended up upsetting Izaya just because he didn't know how to deal with the fear he experienced when he realized that he could've lost Shizuo forever, and that made him wonder just how much worse he would react if he was to drown in a sea of emotions. "Izaya."

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry for the way I acted today, but after what you tried doing to me and the knowledge that you tried to get my brother killed before, I couldn't stop myself from saying those hurtful words."

Izaya scoffed. "The words of a creature as empty as you mean nothing to me." How can someone who doesn't fell anything be sorry?

"My apology may not mean much to you, because this regret I feel―as well as everything else―feels weak, diluted, but it's still there."

Izaya's brows furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand."

Kasuka stared ahead for a while, trying to find a better explanation. Focusing his attention back to the man before him, he tried again. "I don't feel things like most people do, because these normal human emotions that you take for granted feel much lower in intensity in a person such as myself. If, and when, I feel something, the emotion is very weak."

Izaya blinked a few times, his brain still trying to process the freak's explanation. It was almost amusing in a sick, twisted way, how the two brothers were both monsters and yet complete opposites. They both kept blaming themselves for the way the other turned out, but the way Izaya saw it, it was just nature's way of saying, "Screw you!" to humanity. They were an anomaly, and he finally understood why he could love all of humanity but not Heiwajima Shizuo. The beast was a mistake and so was his brother.

"That's not all," Kasuka continued. "I wasn't being completely honest when I said that I forgave you for what happened today. I was confident in my ability to defend myself against you if I needed to, but you injected me with something and whatever that was left me weak. I couldn't fight off that man and it was frustrating."

"Apology not accepted," Izaya finally said, arms folded over his chest, eyes glaring daggers at him.

Kasuka felt that same twinge of something in his chest again. "I understand."

"What do you want from me?" He was too tired and he wanted to crawl into bed and hopefully pass out from physical exhaustion.

That's a good question, thought Kasuka and tried to phrase his request in such a way that would not upset Izaya too much. "I want you to try to get to know my brother before you decide whether or not you want to continue with your revenge."

Izaya's features twisted in anger. "I'll never forgive him for what he did."

"I'm not asking you to, but he now knows that what he did was wrong." What Shizuo had done was unforgivable, but Kasuka didn't believe that his brother deserved to die for it. What I did today was unforgivable too.

Izaya laughed bitterly. "You're too naive. Shizu-chan is probably looking for me as we speak."

"No, because he doesn't blame you for this."

Izaya's eyes widened momentarily before narrowing into slits, his hateful glare burning holes into Kasuka. "He blames me for everything. He always has."

Izaya was right about that, but for the first time in his life, Shizuo didn't blame the Informant because he knew that his actions had been the ones to push Izaya to take such extreme measures in order to take revenge. Kasuka didn't know exactly what happened while he had been unconscious, but he still couldn't believe that Shizuo would not try to murder Izaya after what the man had done. The old Shizuo would've lost himself to his rage, but the Shizuo from earlier that day had been someone he hardly recognized. He couldn't remember ever seeing him act like that and he found the whole thing to be extremely unusual. Kasuka could go as far as to call it progress. "No, not this time. He even asked me if I don't mind him not punishing you for what you have done today."

Izaya shook his head in denial. "He would never say that." Shizuo was a monster and he would certainly come looking for him no matter what because the blond was nothing more than a mindless beast who acted on its impulses, which in this case happened to be his desire to brutally murder the one who had hurt his precious little brother.

"Yet he did."

Izaya's hands balled into fists. "No!" He allowed his body to slump on the couch, feeling completely exhausted. He would never say that...

"I still don't understand why he snapped that day," Kasuka confessed. "I know that you sent gangs after him, that you pinned crimes on him, that you made him lose his job on multiple occasions, and even went as far as to get him shot, yet he never did anything else besides chasing you around and screaming about how he was going to kill you."

Izaya frowned. "I didn't do anything. I was just taking a stroll through Ikebukuro when a vending machine hit me out of nowhere. Now that you mention it, he was acting strange that time, more so than usual." He clearly remembered how annoyed he felt when Shizuo kept being an asshole to him even though he hadn't done anything bad in weeks. "You know, he never caught me before, no matter how hard he tried. I shouldn't have underestimated him. Usually he gives up after a while, but that evening he kept chasing me for a long time, like he was decided to catch me no matter what. I have no idea what happened that day to make him hate me so much more than usual."

"I..." Kasuka said weakly, his previously emotionless expression turning into something more human. "I think," he said, tilting his head and looking at Izaya with wide and slightly pained eyes, "I think it might've been my fault."

Izaya's body stiffened, brows furrowed in confusion and nails digging painfully into his arms. "What do you mean?"

"I sent him some clothes that day, and a suit, letting him know through a letter that I was aware of him losing his job at the bar. I wrote: 'These should be of more help to you now that you lost your job at the bar. Love, Kasuka.' It sounds cold, doesn't it? I'm a horrible brother."

Izaya's jaw stiffened and he needed a few moments to find his voice. "That's stupid, blaming yourself for what he did."

"I'm sorry," Kasuka said, weakly, that pain in his chest returning with higher intensity.

"You might be a monster, but at least you didn't do anything today besides being an asshole. Your brother on the other hand is a completely different story." Izaya let his arms fall by his sides, both his mind and body completely exhausted after such a long and painful day. "I need sleep."

Kasuka got up, picked up the coat and slipped into it, trying to ignore the blood seeping down his chest. "You're both so painfully human," he remarked before he turned around and started walking towards the door.

"Wait!" Izaya asked and pushed himself off the couch, slowly making his way towards the emotionless freak. "Even if it's you, this might hurt," he said just before he punched Kasuka in the face with all the strength he could muster.

Kasuka staggered backwards, blood already starting to flow down his chin before he leaned forward, trying to curl in on himself because of the pain overriding his senses, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth proof that the inside of his upper lip had gotten nicked when it smashed into his front teeth.

"Ugh!" Izaya cried out, his fist hurting so much that he could barely move it after using so much strength to punch the bastard in the face. "I'm not sorry," he said and flexed his fingers to confirm that none had been broken.

Kasuka raised his broken hand to try to stop the blood flowing out of his broken nose with the fur on the coat's sleeve, but he stopped mid-way, Izaya's glare making him give up on that thought. He lowered his hand and used the other one to stop some of the blood from flowing out of his nose and onto Izaya's floor, but it was no use, so he slowly straightened his back, the blood now cascading down his face and throat. He was not used to getting hit in the face. He blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the blurriness in his eyes. "You punch harder than Slon," he said as soon as he was able to speak again.

Izaya rolled his eyes.

"I think I might need reconstructive surgery."

"If that's the case, I believe we might be even."

"Then I hope I'll need that surgery," Kasuka said before he turned around and walked out of the apartment.

Ah, Kasuka, things might be exactly what they seem sometimes, but most of the time they aren't, thought Izaya as he watched him leave. Besides, Shizu-chan is not sorry... he could never be sorry.

Chapter 26: Parabola

Izaya staggered to the door in order to lock it before he headed back to the couch, a malevolent expression surfacing the moment he was once again alone inside his apartment. He felt physically exhausted but he was also sick and tired of acting nice and forgiving in front of the freak when all he had wanted to do in reality was to get the biggest kitchen knife he could find and slit Kasuka's throat as payment for humiliating him like that. That would've been counter-productive though, because he was an Informant and information was always something he liked to have, so if listening to Kasuka's life story meant that he would get something to break either the freak or the beast, he would gladly go through it over and over again, a thousand times if need be.

He knelt in front of the table and proceeded to pick up the Chess, Othello and Shogi pieces scattered all over the floor. His fingers tightened around the Knight piece and his jaw clenched, fury racing through his entire being at his own monumental stupidity. He shouldn't have taken on the role of the Knight to save Kasuka. He was supposed to be the strategist, the man behind the game, not just a simple piece on the board, yet he had ended up turning into one to save a thing that didn't even deserve saving. How could he kill a human for something as monstrous as Kasuka?

He hated himself for making such a stupid mistake, for interrupting Slon from fucking the goddamn freak into the ground until he bled just as he himself had bled because of Shizuo. Kasuka would've probably not even cared, so Izaya knew that he had wasted a perfectly good opportunity to destroy Shizuo. The beast would've certainly blamed himself, at least to some extent, and it would've been really hard for him to go on living with such guilt weighing down on him. Izaya really shouldn't have taken pity on Kasuka. Enraged, he threw the Knight piece into the nearest wall before he slumped against the table, humorless laughter slipping past his lips. I'm going to destroy them both, I'm going to crush them, I'm going to make the Heiwajima brothers regret ever messing with Orihara Izaya... I'm going to... I'm go― ugh... so tired, he thought and closed his eyes to rest them for a bit, only to fall asleep on the floor of his living room with his back against the table.

That night he dreamed of a time when he was a still a god, a powerful god who watched over his people; of a time when thinking about the beast didn't make his body thrum with both fear and rage. Back then Shizuo had been nothing more than a nuisance, an annoying dog that kept barking at everyone and everything at the slightest provocation. An animal that Izaya sometimes found to be amusing, but then his dream shifted and he was back in that filthy alley, his whole being overwhelmed with terror as Shizuo showed him just how easily he could break.

"―ke up."

Huh?

"Wake up already!"

Izaya cracked open an eye. "Na…mie?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Who else? It's not like you have any friends."

Izaya pouted, her painfully honest answer striking a nerve. "Be that as it may, I still have you, the most caring and loving secretary one could ever hope for," he said in a sarcastic manner, his humorless laugh obviously pissing her off.

"Okay, that's it, I'm tired of this pathetic you," she said before grabbing his arm and hauling him up. There was only so much she could take before snapping and punching the bastard in the face.

Izaya felt a bit offended by her remark, but he refused to show it. "Ne, ne, Namie-san, do you think it's wise to insult your boss?" There weren't many people who treated their bosses the way she did, but Izaya didn't really mind. He was used to her insufferable attitude that brought some normality to his screwed up life.

She remained silent, not deigning him worthy of an answer. Instead, she dragged him up the stairs against all protests. Once there she opened the door to the bathroom and pushed him inside with more force than was necessary.

"Does Namie-san want to be the boss today?" he asked, feeling slightly amused at the whole situation. He leaned against the wall, his entire body hurting from falling asleep on the floor. Way to go, Izaya. He stared at the open door. "I wonder what Namie-san is doing in my room... I hope she's not getting any perverted thoughts from going through my drawers," he said out loud, certain that Namie would surely hear him.

"Who the hell would do that?" she growled, glaring murder at him as she stomped into the bathroom and pushed some clothes into his face, waiting for him to raise his arms in order to grab them. She was getting paid good money and she refused to lose such a great job because her idiotic boss was sitting around mopping all day long.

"Ah, did Namie-san go through my underwear drawer?" he said, amusement clear in his voice. It must've been really awkward for her and he had to struggle really hard to not burst into laughter.

Arms folded over her chest, she threw him the most disgusted look she could muster. "It was necessary."

Izaya chuckled as he set the clothes down. "I have such a loving secretary... I think I'm about to shed a few tears of joy," he said and wiped away a non-existing tear.

Namie snorted and turned around. "You'd better be ready to work by the time you get out, because if I see you mopping around again, I swear that I'm going to murder you and take over your business. No one needs a useless Informant. Got it?"

Izaya raised a hand to his head and saluted. "Understood!"

"Tch, then get to it," she said just before she slammed the door hard enough to make both of them wince.

Izaya walked to the sink on unsteady legs, picked up a plastic cup and drank some much needed water. He put the cup down and glared at his reflection in the mirror. I look terrible, he thought dejectedly. He turned on the faucet and let the bathtub fill with water while he gingerly took off his clothes and inspected Shinra's work which looked like someone had hacked into his body before messily sewing it up. He was a wreck, those weeks of starving himself taking a toll on him. He was back to eating food again, but he knew that he was still too thin. The last time he'd checked his weight had been the day when he made the mistake of getting caught by Shizuo. After that, he couldn't even stand to look at his body anymore, not when all he could see where the bruises covering his once flawless skin. He shuddered and shook his head. The bruises he inflicted are long gone, he told himself as he stared at his body for a while, trying to convince himself that they were truly gone. It took him a while to succeed, but it worked, and when it did, he stepped into the tub and sat down, a sigh slipping past his lips at the pleasant feeling of hot water on his cold skin before he ended up cringing as the scorching liquid came in contact with his stitched up wound. He realized that he should've put a waterproof bandage on Shinra's 'work of art.'

He allowed his head to drop on the edge of the tub before he closed his eyes and stayed like that for a while. Namie wasn't the only one tired of his pathetic self. He felt ashamed about the way he had reacted during his encounter with Kasuka and he couldn't let that happen again.

He opened his eyes, grabbed the soap and the sponge and proceeded to clean himself up. He was still okay, he was alive, and he wasn't hurt anymore; he had to snap out of it already. The only way to win was to stop being afraid. He was a fallen god, but still a god, so all he had to do was climb back up no matter what because he simply could not live on the ground with the rest of humanity. He would bet everything on the next encounter with the beast where he would either rise or fade to black; there was no middle ground. If he could survive an encounter without succumbing to fear, he knew that he would be all right. He chuckled darkly. With the information Kasuka oh-so-willingly provided, he could easily make the beast suffer. He had no plans of telling him right away though. He was going to drag it on for as long as possible, until Shizuo dropped to his knees and begged to be told the truth. I'm going to have to take a photo when that happens and then upload it on the Internet. He chuckled some more and stretched like a cat, his stiff joints cracking and popping as a result of the action.

It wasn't the first time one of his plans had failed, nor would it be the last. He would not attempt the same thing again though; it would be redundant and Izaya liked to believe that he wasn't such a boring person. At least he wasn't feeling bad anymore about what he had done to Kasuka and that was good.

His eyes drifted over to the shampoo bottle and he remembered that he really needed a haircut, which somehow made him think of sharp things that could cut and that reminded him of his switchblade. "Tch!" What's with the Heiwajima brothers, always taking away my knives? He glowered at the bottle as though it had just insulted him before he poured a generous amount of shampoo on his hand and proceeded to rinse his hair. He scowled at the feeling of its length, not liking how easy it'd be for someone to grab it. Haircut, today.

"Still alive?" Namie asked from behind the door, making Izaya jump in surprise. "You've been in there for a long time."

He cursed under his breath, hating how noise could startle him so easily. "I'm fine!"

"Oh, I see. In that case, I guess I'm going to have to use that fake will another time."

Izaya's hands froze in his hair, brows furrowed in confusion. He could almost hear her malicious chuckle through the door. "What will?"

"That will in which you leave me your entire fortune."

"Naaaaaamiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!" he growled, "you're such an awful person! I'd rather donate all my money to charity."

Namie snorted at the comment. "In that case, I'd rather eat that fatty tuna myself instead of leaving it to you."

Izaya's eyes lightened up. "Did you say fatty tuna?"

"Maybe..." she said before he heard her walk away.

"Don't you dare eat that!" he warned and proceeded to wash his hair so that he could get out of there and eat. He was so hungry that he would've eaten a horse.

He grabbed the towel to dry himself off once he was done and then put his clothes on before he glared at the bathroom scale as soon as it entered his field of vision. Last time he'd stepped on it, his weight had been fifty-eight kilograms, but now he feared that it was much lower. He took a step towards it and froze on the spot, trying to decide whether or not to do it. Do it, said a voice in his head, so Izaya steeled himself and stepped on it. He slowly lowered his head until he saw the number and strangely enough, he felt relieved that it wasn't as low as he had expected it to be. He smiled. Fifty-four is not that bad. He stepped down, slapped a bandage over the wound and strode out of the bathroom and into his office. "Where is it?" he asked, his mouth watering at the mere thought of eating fresh fatty tuna.

Namie snickered and pointed towards the bag on her desk.

Izaya beamed as his eyes zero-ed in on it, fingers latching onto the bag as he picked it up and bounced over to his desk. He sat down and opened it, eyes glowing at the sight of those perfectly-looking pieces of pink meat adorned with rich white streaks of buttery fat. He anxiously grabbed the chopsticks and picked up a piece before putting it into his mouth, the cool, meaty texture of raw tuna melting as he ate it. "Namie-san is the best secretary I've ever had!" he said cheerfully.

"Tch, I'm the only secretary you've ever had," she said and shot him a nasty glare.

Izaya snickered as he picked up another piece. "My point exactly."

"Hey..."

Izaya turned his head towards her. "Hmm?"

"I don't know what happened to you, but I think it's time you moved on."

Izaya started coughing, a piece of fatty tuna going the wrong way. "Namie-san!!! I'm trying to eat here," he whined once he was able to talk again.

Namie looked at him for a moment before turning her attention back to the screen of her laptop. "Finish that and get to work."

Izaya pouted, suddenly feeling offended by her remark. "But I've been working this whole time!"

Namie's head snapped his way. "Easy jobs with awful payment that you can do from the comfort of your own apartment."

Izaya lowered his head and stared blankly at his food. "No, really, I've been working on an important job for a while now, I swear, but anyway, don't worry, I'm back now."

"Good," she said and started typing away.

Izaya watched her for a moment, trying to gather the courage to ask his next question. "Namie-san, are there any jobs in Ikebukuro?"

Namie looked at him in surprise as she got up, picked up a few files and dropped them on his desk before going back to her own. "Pick one."

His brows furrowed as he glared at her. "Why aren't these in digital format?"

"Because I didn't feel like typing them on the computer," she answered in a cold tone that left no argument.

He glared at her some more before he hesitantly picked up the one at the top of the pile and went through the pages before dropping it and moving to the next one. "Boring," he said after a while, "so boring... why are they all boring?"

Namie ignored him and kept on typing.

"Is Namie-san giving me the cold shoulder now? Ah, I'm hurt, I'm so very hurt, and here I was, thinking that we were just starting to get along," Izaya said, expression set into a pout, but then he ended up cringing when he noticed Namie's sardonic smile. "Okay, I get it, I get it. Thanks for the food, I'll get to work now, before you end up murdering me and stealing my fortune."

"I'm glad we're on the same page," she said as she dropped a few more files on his desk.

Izaya grimaced as he stared at the huge pile of files. I can do this, he thought and picked up another piece of fatty tuna, eyes rolling in the back of his head at the sheer pleasure he got from tasting such a delicacy. I'm not going to hide anymore; I'm bringing the battle to you, Shizu-chan.

Chapter 27: Haunted

Shizuo woke up with a start, a hopeless plea of "stop" slipping passed dry lips. Wild shivers wracked his sweaty frame, teeth chattering as images from his nightmare refused to evanesce, eyes darting around the room to make sure that it had been nothing more than a bad dream, that he wasn't actually hurting Kasuka in such a way. The nightmare had been different this time around. Unlike the previous times, he wasn't dissociating himself from his own actions anymore in a desperate subconscious attempt to lessen the guilt.

He often had nightmares about that night, each time waking up just a little more broken than before. It was like he was trapped in his own body while the monster that was Ikebukuro's beast did terrible things to Izaya. This time however he was the one making Izaya bleed as he thrust and thrust and thrust into the unwilling body, a part of him wanting to destroy the man beyond repair, while the other part of him, perhaps a last vestige of his humanity, begged the beast to stop.

The nightmare was terrible enough as it was, but somewhere along the line he heard Izaya's accusing voice when he said, "you, Shizu-chan, you're Slon," and, to his own horror, he saw Izaya's image morph into that of Kasuka and no matter how much he pleaded and cried for the nightmare to end, he couldn't stop himself from hurting his little brother in the same manner that he had hurt Izaya. He could honestly say that it had been the worst nightmare he had ever had.

He felt bile rise in his throat at the recollection and he rushed to the bathroom but he refused to throw up so instead he kept his eyes squeezed shut and tried to fight off the nausea, knuckles turning white from how hard he was struggling to not crush the sink under his fingers until finally he reigned it in and turned the faucet to splash some cold water on his face. His limbs shook with fine tremors and he inhaled a ragged breath, scrubbing a hand over his face in an effort to fully wake up.

His little brother was fine. They had barely dodged a bullet by Izaya's grace alone. The man hadn't gone through with his cruel plan and for that Shizuo would be forever grateful. A broken laugh erupted from his dry throat at the irony of it all as the memories of all those times he had called Izaya a monster came back to him. Even though neither of them was human enough, Izaya had still been unable to do it, which meant that the man he always thought of as a monster was more human that Shizuo himself had ever been.

Then again, he knew that he was no longer human, not after what he'd done, because a real man would've just killed off the flea instead of trying to use sex as a weapon to break him. That night he'd been driven by pure, savage, primitive behavior and it shamed him to know that he could ever treat another human being that way, even if said person happened to be the flea. He now understood why people often said that power corrupts.

The second Izaya had been in his grasp, his mind had been intoxicated at the prospect of finally paying him back for all the things the man had done to him over the years. He had finally succeeded in catching the annoying prey that seemed to defy gravity, and to have such a tough opponent at his mercy made him succumb to his most primal desire of wanting to break and destroy the man out of a sense of unadulterated anger. He knew exactly what he was doing, but it was only after the victory's euphoria had run out that he truly understood the gravity of the situation. His aim had been to humiliate, debase and to hurt Izaya so that the man would understand just how much he hated him; the tragic thing was that he had succeeded in his endeavor. He ran a wet hand through his hair and looked in the mirror for a second before he turned around when he realized how much he hated the person looking back at him.

Breathing deeply, he willed the tension in his body to dissipate before he walked out of the bathroom and picked up the phone from the coffee table. He didn't know who put it there, because the last time he remembered having it in his hands was when Celty knocked on his door with an unconscious Kasuka in her arms. He must've dropped it back then and it really was a miracle the thing was still working. He needed to know if Kasuka was all right, so he dialed the number, raised the phone to his ear and waited for him to pick up.

"Hello."

He ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the couch. He didn't know why, but he suddenly found it really hard to talk to Kasuka; not that talking to his seemingly emotionless brother had ever been easy. "Hey..." he finally said and held his breath, hoping that Kasuka didn't hate him enough to never want to talk to him again.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. Kasuka was expecting to get a call from Shizuo, especially after bailing in the middle of the night without so much as a word.

Everything is wrong, thought Shizuo and struggled to swallow the lump in his throat so that he could speak. "Are you... are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

Shizuo grit his teeth in annoyance. Of course Kasuka would say he was fine, he always said that, just like all those other times when he got bullied by other kids for money. It pissed him off that Kasuka was always so passive when it came to everything. "You were hurt pretty badly."

"They took care of my broken wrist at the hospital."

Shizuo's fingers clenched around the phone. "That's not... that's not the only thing I'm worried about." He knew that Kasuka wasn't weak, which meant that his little brother could easily deal with the physical injuries, but it didn't mean that he wasn't worried about him. Still, considering how much worse it could've been, his brother was damn lucky for being able to leave that place with only a broken wrist. He'd seen the video, so he knew exactly how far Slon had gotten before Izaya jumped in to stop him. No matter how emotionless his little brother seemed to be, Shizuo knew that wasn't the case. He realized that perhaps he should stop beating around the bush and just ask him directly. "What I really want to know is how are YOU doing?"

Kasuka was expecting the question, because it was just like Shizuo to worry about him all the time. "I'm good." He figured that perhaps it was time for Shizuo to understand that he wasn't a little kid anymore, that he wasn't someone weak who needed his protection all the time. He never wanted it to begin with, and he had never asked for it even when he might've needed it, so he wasn't about to start.

Shizuo jumped to his feet and started pacing around the room. "After what happened?! How can you?" It was exactly the type of attitude he couldn't stand; no matter how much Kasuka pretended to be emotionless, he knew that wasn't the case. He hated how his little brother refused to be honest with him even in such a serious situation.

"It didn't affect me as badly as you think it did."

Shizuo's whole body stiffened. He couldn't stand it when Kasuka lied to him like that, and even though he didn't want to fight over the phone, he still couldn't help but snap at him. "It's my fault you had to go through that in the first place! Do you even understand what could've happened to you??"

"I understand, but nothing happened, so there's no point in dwelling over it."

"Are you even listening to yourself?!" There was silence from Kasuka's end, so Shizuo continued. "I'll be waiting for you, so come over as soon as you have some free time."

Kasuka had expected the request, but he wasn't about to oblige. "I'm sorry, but I'm busy."

"How about tomorrow?"

Even if he wanted to go, Kasuka couldn't, not after messing up everyone's schedule. They were left with no choice but to film the action scenes where he'd be injured in the movie. "I'm leaving Tokyo tomorrow."

Shizuo sighed, exasperated, and continued to pace around the room. "Then come over today."

"I really can't, I'm sorry."

"Don't run away from me!" Shizuo demanded in a rough voice.

"I'm not."

Shizuo could already feel fear clawing at his guts. "Is it because you finally understand what I've done? Is that why you don't want to see me anymore?"

"It has nothing to do with you."

"Are you afraid of me?" He dreaded to hear the answer but he needed to know. If his little brother said "yes", he would stay away from Kasuka no matter how much it pained him to do so.

"You know, nii-san, not everything is about you. I'm not, nor will I ever be afraid of you. I've told you that a million times before. How many times do you want me to repeat myself before it goes through that thick skull of yours?"

Shizuo wanted to believe those words more than anything, but he still had doubts. "Then why don't you want to see me anymore?" he asked, and he hated how meek his voice had sounded.

Kasuka remained silent for a while, his thoughts going back to the events of the previous night. He knew he had acted like a horrible person and that wasn't who he was. "Because I've done enough damage already."

"What...?"

"I've said some terrible things to Izaya yesterday because of what you tried to do. I don't want to do such a thing again. I need to stay away for a while. I hope you understand."

Shizuo gasped in surprise, suddenly feeling weary about the whole situation. "You talked to Izaya?"

"I've met him last night."

"Are you insane?!" he nearly screeched. Kasuka should've known better than to seek out the man who had kidnapped him. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm the one who hurt him."

Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh?"

"Please understand."

"Did you tell him that I tried to kill myse―"

"No, I didn't tell him. I'm sorry, but I have to go now. I'll be back in a couple of weeks."

"Wai―"

"Good bye."

Shizuo dropped the phone back on the coffee table, grabbed the pack of cigarettes and the lighter, and slumped back on the couch. "What the hell...?" He placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it up. If Kasuka had pissed Izaya off, then perhaps it was better for him to stay away from Tokyo for a while. There was no telling how far Izaya would go and Shizuo was certain that the man was nowhere near finished taking his revenge. He also realized that it was about time he grew a pair and properly apologized to Izaya; not because it'd magically make everything better, but because it was the right thing to do.

A proper apology, he thought, not the shit he'd pulled that time at Shinra's apartment when he had almost strangled the insect to death. He took a drag from the cigarette and closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to get Izaya to listen to him. It'd have to be in a public place because he knew that Izaya wouldn't like the idea of being alone with him, not after they had almost killed each other the last time they happened to end up together in the same room. He picked up the phone and stared at it for a while, steeling himself to call Izaya. "Here goes nothing." He dialed the number and waited, but the man didn't pick up and Shizuo couldn't really blame him, not after what he'd done to him.

He put the phone back on the coffee table and got up, took off his clothes, threw them in with the rest of the dirty laundry, and went to take a shower. The hot water felt nice on his cold skin. He dreaded the idea of going outside when it was so cold, but he knew that he had no choice. His bills weren't going to pay themselves. Suddenly, a shiver ran down his spine at the thought that instead of taking a shower he could've still been clinging to Kasuka's broken body had Izaya gone through with the plan.

A bleak laugh fell from his lips and he leaned against the bathroom tiles, the urge to punch something getting stronger by the second. He wished that Izaya would've succeeded in killing him that night with the same knife that Shizuo had tried to thrust into his own heart in a pathetic attempt to end his useless existence; he sure as hell deserved it. He didn't have time to mop around though unless he wanted to be late for work, so he pushed himself away from the wall and quickly washed before drying himself off with a towel and rushing to his bedroom to get dressed. He put on underwear, an undershirt, and then picked a black hoodie and a pair of black pants to wear for the day.

He almost laughed at the irony; Izaya was supposed to be the one dressed in black while he wore the bartender uniform. They were obviously not as expensive as the stuff Izaya wore, but Shizuo wasn't a rich bastard so he only bought stuff he could afford. He had some expensive clothes from Kasuka, but he didn't want to get blood stains on them in case he'd have to beat up some punk at work. He had given up on his bartender uniform after that night. There was no point in using it anymore, not when Kasuka knew that he had lost his job. At least people still recognized and avoided him as much as possible, even without his trademark uniform; no one wanted to set off Ikebukuro's beast.

He still dyed his hair blonde though; he couldn't give up on that, not when it served as a warning to those around him to not get too close. He smiled at the memory of Tom suggesting he dyed his hair before his smile fell when he realized how late he was for work. He cursed out loud and looked for Izaya's switchblade, knowing that he wouldn't be able to leave the apartment if he didn't have it with him. He saw it stick out from behind the couch, so he picked it up, cleaned the dry blood off of it, grabbed his cigarettes, lighter, phone and keys before he put his jacket and shoes on and rushed out the door.

***

"Hey," said Tom when he saw his employee show up at the usual rendezvous spot.

"Mornin'." It was a cold, foggy day and Shizuo wanted nothing more than to go back to his apartment, curl under the covers of his bed and stay there until he felt ready to face the world. He certainly wasn't feeling ready as he walked down the street with Tom to collect money from some poor unfortunate soul.

"Are you feeling all right?" Tom asked when he saw that Shizuo looked paler than usual. In fact, it looked like the man was about to pass out or something.

"I'm good, just a bit tired, s'all." He always felt tired. He could never get a good night's sleep anymore, not when he was constantly plagued by nightmares. He did feel worse than usual though, but it was to be expected after the emotional rollercoaster of the day before. He felt completely drained, like all of the energy had been sucked right out of him, leaving behind nothing but an empty husk. He dropped the cigarette he had just finished smoking, slipped another one between his lips and then kept on chain-smoking one cigarette after another.

Tom stared at him for a bit, his expression one of worry. "Are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm sure." Shit, he inwardly cursed, am I this transparent?

Tom gave him a skeptical look but he remained silent for a while until finally deciding that he'd had enough. "For how long have we known each other?"

"Too long," Shizuo mumbled as he took another drag from the cigarette. He'd stopped counting them after the fourth one.

"Exactly! That's why I know something's wrong."

Shizuo's eye twitched and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, cigarette hanging loosely between his lips. "I'm fine, really."

Tom sighed and stopped in his tracks. "Look, I didn't say anything because you know how I don't like to meddle into other people's business, but I'm really worried about you. You don't look well."

Shizuo ran a hand through his hair and stopped as well. He threw the butt of the latest smoked cigarette on the ground and stepped on it before he lit up another one and turned to face his boss. "I've been having some personal problems lately, but I'm trying to work through them."

Tom knew that Shizuo wasn't telling him everything, but he didn't think that insisting would be a wise idea. The best he could do was offer his support and hope that his friend would take it if he ever needed it. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Shizuo forced a smile on his face to reassure Tom. He really hated to see other people worry about him. Someone like him didn't deserve to have such good people as friends. "Thanks, I will."

Tom was certain that the man would never ask for help no matter what, but he also knew that Shizuo would appreciate any help being offered to him. His friend always had a low opinion of himself and Tom hated that because Shizuo was a good person, no matter what other people thought of him. He'd seen him upset before, but it was never this bad and never for so long. His friend was slowly turning into a walking corpse and he didn't like that. An idea popped into his head, so he hooked an arm around Shizuo's neck and smiled broadly. "Let's go get you some cake and a milkshake."

"We don't have ti―"

"We do, we do," Tom said and started dragging Shizuo towards the nearest place where they could get some of those sweets his friend loved so much. He actually had to push Shizuo down on the chair in order to make him sit down, but after that the man mostly remained silent as he slowly ate the cake ordered for him. Tom only drank a soda because he wasn't in the mood to eat anything, but he knew that sweets always made Shizuo feel better and that was the only thing that mattered. He did find it weird that the man wasn't as enthusiastic as he used to be when it came to sweets.

Hmm, when did this start, he wondered, and thought back to the time when he noticed the first change in Shizuo. It was around the time the blond had stopped wearing the bartender uniform, muttering something about there being no point in keeping up the pretense anymore. After that, Shizuo kept getting worse by the day, as though he was being haunted by something. I guess it started a couple of months ago. He watched Shizuo as he ate, the blank look on the man's face telling him that he wasn't particularly enjoying the dessert. "Do you want to try something else?"

Shizuo shook his head and forced a smile on his face. "No, this is great, thanks." He inwardly cursed himself for the slip-up, really hating to see Tom worrying about him. He pretended to enjoy eating the rest of the cake, and once he was done, they both went back to work. The guy they were about to visit was someone who kept evading them, so he couldn't help but wonder how did Tom succeed in finding the man. He figured he could use it as a topic of conversation because the stifling silence was starting to get to him. "How did you find him?" he finally asked and watched as Tom scratched his head and averted his eyes as though he was guilty of something. Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion. "What...?"

Tom laughed nervously. "Orihara Izaya found him for me."

Shizuo immediately tensed, wondering how many times had Izaya been to Ikebukuro without him noticing. "When did you meet him?"

Tom scratched his head as he stared into space. "Ah, I didn't. I only talked to him on the phone. Now that you mention it, I do find it strange that he hasn't shown his face in Ikebukuro in a long time. You've probably heard the rumors about him being dead, right?"

Shizuo grimaced. Of course he had, and the sad thing was that Izaya had actually almost died. "Yeah, he finally answered," his voice thick with emotion.

"I thought it was funny how everyone accused you of murdering him," Tom continued, smiling, and gave him a pat on the back, "but that's because they don't know you like I do."

Shizuo stiffened. You don't know me; you don't know me at all! It was more painful to hear someone say that he was a good person than being called a monster. Still, this was not about him. "Hey, do you happen to know where he lives?"

"Don't tell me you want to go there and kill him once and for all." Tom was always worried when it came to Shizuo and Izaya, because he could never tell what they would do next.

Shizuo shook his head. "No, I only want to talk to him about something."

Tom gave him a skeptical look, trying to figure out why Shizuo would suddenly ask for Izaya's address. "I'm sorry, Shizuo, but I still need you, so I can't afford to let you get caught by the police for murdering Orihara Izaya."

Shizuo grabbed his friend's shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes. "I won't hurt him, I give you my word."

Tom watched him for a long time, trying to figure out if Shizuo was being honest about it or not. Truth be told, it wasn't that hard to find out where the Informant lived, so it wasn't like Shizuo couldn't find him if he were to start asking around. He sighed. "Fine. It's not like his address is a state secret, it's just that you've never tried to find him before," he said as he took out the man's business card from his wallet.

Shizuo's arm fell back to his side. It was true that he had never tried to find Izaya before no matter how many times he'd told the flea that he'd kill him. He was happy enough just knowing that Izaya stayed out of Ikebukuro and that was why he had never bothered to chase him into Shinjuku.

"Here," Tom said and handed him Izaya's business card. "Try not to kill him. I still need you."

Shizuo nodded slowly and proceeded to follow Tom as the man crossed the street, unable to take his eyes off the business card. It didn't even surprise him that the thing was black, the silver writing giving the whole thing an elegant look. So Izaya-like... Making one of those things had probably been expensive, but he knew that Izaya could easily afford it because the bastard made a lot of money selling and buying information. 

I don't have time for this right now, he thought just before he slipped the card into his wallet and shoved the thing back into the pocket of his pants. I'll go see him after work. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he sure as hell had to go nonetheless. Izaya wasn't answering his phone, so Shizuo was left with no other choice. This is going to be a long day, he thought and sighed, following Tom into the apartment building of their first 'client' for the day. A very long day...

Chapter 28: The Night Beckons

The air was cold as Shizuo made his way towards Izaya's apartment, the icy wind viciously biting into his face. He wasn't even there, yet he was already feeling faint, an incessant feeling of nausea taking root into his very being and blood freezing in his veins at the prospect of the upcoming meeting. He severely doubted that he could have a proper conversation with the man let alone apologize because the only way in which the two of them ever 'talked' had been through fists, switchblade slashes and whatever object of the urban landscape happened to be in his path. Nothing about the two of them was normal, so it stood to reason that their conversation would be anything but conventional.

There would most likely be fighting, and Izaya might even try to kill him, but that was fine, because he didn't mind dying by the Informant's hands after the man had saved Kasuka from what could've been the same intense physical and emotional pain that he himself had inflicted upon him that night when he ended up abandoning his humanity with the sole intent of damaging his sworn enemy beyond repair. It was becoming more and more tiring to always think about that one night when he had made the biggest mistake of his life, but perhaps that was part of his punishment, to feel as though he was stuck in a deep, dark pit with no way out, haunted by the man who succeeded in obliterating the weak brake he had on his usually blind fury.

He shivered when a particular strong gust of wind swept by as he kept on walking, at the same time realizing that he was already in front of the apartment building in which Izaya resided. He scrubbed a hand over his face in an unsuccessful attempt to fully awake from wherever his mind had been wandering and he sighed in frustration before trying to take a step up the stairs, only to freeze in his tracks when his body refused to move. 

Fortunately, he didn't have time to dwell on his lack of courage. He saw Izaya walk out of the building, the man's speed suggesting that he was in a hurry to get somewhere. Shizuo instinctively spun around, taken by surprise by the unexpected appearance. Luckily he had the hood on, so his blonde hair hadn't stood out like a beacon for Izaya to spot. It wasn't that he was hiding, but he didn't want their meeting to happen in such a place either, so he waited a bit until Izaya put some distance between them before he proceeded to surreptitiously pursue him.

Izaya was as fast as ever, not running but not quite walking either, making Shizuo wonder where he was heading and with whom he was meeting to cause him to be in such a hurry. It wasn't like it was any of his business, but he was curious to know if perhaps Izaya was doing most of his business in Shinjuku now because he was too scared to go back to Ikebukuro where he knew his rapist resided. Shit, he inwardly cursed, cringing at the notion of him being nothing more than one of those disgusting rapists that every decent human being wished to wipe out from existence.

Even most criminals looked down upon someone like him because he was one of the worst types of offenders society had to offer. Life used to be much easier when he was only the rage monster who had the people in Ikebukuro run away screaming each time he lost his temper. He never imagined how happy he would be if he could turn back time and go back to being just Ikebukuro's beast and nothing else.

He could feel bitter laughter starting to well up deep within, so he pressed his lips tightly together in order to contain it, not wanting to alert Izaya of his presence, but the man didn't seem to pay any attention to his surroundings, as though his mind was set on a particular destination as he swiftly made his way through Shinjuku's dark streets and alleys. 

The hell is he doing, thought Shizuo as he trailed the Informant under the cover of the dark, careful with each step he took as to not reveal his presence. Good job, Heiwajima Shizuo, he thought bitterly, now you're not only a rapist, but a stalker too. He was craving a smoke so badly that he unconsciously withdrew the cigarettes and lighter from his pocket before coming back to his senses and shoving them back inside with a low growl, inwardly berating himself for the slip up while he ground his teeth harder in pure frustration at being unable to feed his addiction.

He didn't have time to dwell on it though because Izaya abruptly stopped and Shizuo barely had enough time to dash behind a corner in order to avoid being seen. He felt his heartbeat quicken and he was starting to turn paranoid thinking that Izaya might be able to hear his racing heart even from where he was standing, but the rational part of his brain knew that was not possible given the large distance between them. Then again, there really was no wonder he was nervous, because Heiwajima Shizuo didn't sneak around, it wasn't his style, and he most certainly did not follow Orihara Izaya in the middle of the night like some sort of fucked up creep stalking his victim. 

But that's exactly what you're doing, idiot, he berated himself while struggling to stand still and to not make any noises that would alert Izaya of his presence. He had no idea how to explain himself if the man were to catch him spying―even though he wasn't exactly spying―but it wasn't like the flea would ever understand how hard it was for him to seek him out. Why's this bastard not going to a populated area already? He risked a glance around the corner and saw that Izaya was talking to some suspicious guy who was handing him something. There was obviously nothing legit about the whole thing, but Shizuo couldn't have cared less because it wasn't like he ever thought of Izaya as being a decent human being to begin with. He knew exactly what the Informant was, a freakin' bastard and one of the biggest trolls in existence.

Just because Shizuo had stopped blaming him for what happened, it didn't mean he suddenly thought that Izaya didn't deserve anything bad happening to him, or that he saw him as this poor innocent thing who was not guilty of any sin. Izaya was still an awful human being and Shizuo had a feeling that the flea would never change no matter what happened to him. He knew that he'd succeeded in breaking him somehow, the proof being Izaya's wild behavior that time when they had met at Shinra's place, but he also knew that the man would always bounce back no matter what because that was who Orihara Izaya was. There was also the matter of Izaya trying to get Kasuka raped as revenge for what happened to him, and while Shizuo knew that too was completely his fault, it still bothered him that his little brother had ended up getting involved in his mess.

Izaya should've gone for him instead, but if he had, then he wouldn't have been the cruel bastard that Shizuo had known for so many years. Judging by their long time feud, it was surprising that Izaya hadn't tried to use Kasuka against him sooner. Their animosity was well known throughout Ikebukuro, and while they hated each other's guts, they had never before attempted to get their families involved. No matter what kind of bastard Izaya was, Shizuo would never hurt Mairu and Kururi in order to piss off the flea. Not that the bastard would ever get mad to begin with even if he did. It didn't look like he had any sort of affection for his little sisters. The most important person to Izaya was Izaya himself, so when Shizuo hurt him, the man thought it was only fair that he hurt Kasuka because he knew that Shizuo cared about his little brother more than he cared about himself. Why did I have to piss off such an insane guy, he thought dejectedly.

He took another peek around the corner and watched as the other guy walked away while Izaya appeared to be typing a message on his phone before putting it back into his pocket and walking away as well. The flea seemed to pick up speed, so Shizuo hurried to follow before he ended up losing him, accidentally tripping on a can of something, the metallic sound attracting Izaya's attention. Shizuo immediately glued himself to the wall and hoped that Izaya hadn't seen him, the almost crimson gaze slanted his way making a shiver run down his spine. It wasn't that he was scared of the man, but what terrified him was what the Informant could do. From all the people he could've made as an enemy, he just had to piss off the most dangerous one of them all. It felt as though he was playing with fire and he was starting to regret his decision of following him. He breathed in relief when he saw Izaya turn around and decided that it was best to go home and look for him the next day. 

Where the hell am I, he wondered when he realized that he had no clue where he had ended up after following Izaya through the dark narrow streets of Shinjuku. Freakin' louse! He sighed in annoyance and tried to find his way to a busier street from where he could figure out where the hell he was. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket to retrieve his cigarettes and lighter as he passed a trash can, right at that moment getting jumped by someone before he was pushed face first into a wall, the blade of a knife lightly swaying barely a hair’s breath away from his throat as he nervously swallowed. He couldn't see who it was, but judging by the fur tickling his jaw, it had to be none other than Izaya.

"Why are you following me?" Izaya asked, emphasizing his question by pushing the sharp edge of the switchblade harder into the man's skin.

Shizuo couldn't remember ever being in such a vulnerable position before, and even though it was freezing cold outside, he could feel a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. No matter how he looked at it, the flea had both the power and the motivation to snuff his life and it was ridiculous how the thought somehow frightened him even after he had attempted to end his own life before.

Izaya was starting to get tired of the man's silence, so he pushed the other's head harder into the wall. "Answer the question!"

Shizuo scrunched his eyes, teeth grinding hard against each other in frustration at having been caught, all the while the skin of his forehead was getting scraped along the wall as Izaya kept pushing his face against the rough surface. He found himself opening and closing his mouth a few times before finally finding the courage to speak. "I-Izaya..."

The voice was so faint that Izaya would've missed it if he hadn't been listening carefully, and even though that was not how the brute usually sounded, he was almost certain it was him. The grip on his switchblade faltered for a moment and he felt his pulse pick up, heart ratcheting up to an unsteady rhythm in his rib cage as he used his left hand to pull down the hood to better see if the one he had pinned to a wall was really Shizuo, his stomach roiling with sickening intensity at the thought that he could be so close to the beast who had broken him into more pieces than he could count.

He tried to stay calm but it was no use, his breath turning labored the second he saw Shizuo's blonde hair in the dim light. Even though his instinct urged him to get away right at that very second, his rational mind told him to stay where he was and to not let go. For once he was the one who was in control and he had no intention of giving Shizuo any leverage to free himself, so he snaked a hand into the blonde locks and tightened his hold until he heard a grunt slipping past the beast's lips. "Shizu-chan," he viciously spat out the words, disgust raging through him at being forced to touch the man he despised more than anyone and anything in the entire world, "were you trying to go for round two as punishment for what I did to your freak of a brother?"

Shizuo actually felt offended by the question and he barely suppressed a snarl, knowing that it would not help his cause. "Like I'd ever do something like that again," he said in a thick voice, heart clenching at the realization that those who knew what happened would always think of him as being capable of doing the same thing a second time. The sad thing was that he couldn't really blame Izaya, not after almost fucking the man to death. He felt the sharp edge of the switchblade cut a thin line into his skin and he groaned, wondering if perhaps this was the end for him.

"Liar," Izaya said in a low, dangerous tone, fury stirring at Shizuo's words. He was on full alert, tension bleeding into his rigid, ready stance as he sliced some more into his enemy's neck, the feeling of the warm blood slowly streaming down his skin from the fresh cut on the beast's throat making him shudder in disgust. He knew that he was imagining it as a consequence of being so close to the beast, but it felt as though that awful pain he had been forced to live with for weeks on end still lingered between his legs as a bad memory that would never go away.

Shizuo's poison had slithered into his very being and Izaya had a feeling that he would never get rid of the taint on his body no matter how much he wished otherwise. A wry laugh spilled past his lips as his limbs shook with fine tremors and he hoped that Shizuo couldn't tell just how terrified he was even though he was the one who had Ikebukuro's beast at his mercy.

They were in a dark alley where no one could see them, which meant that he could easily terminate the beast's pathetic existence and get away with it, especially with the contacts he had in the police department, and yet he didn't want to do it because he didn't think that Shizuo had suffered enough for his sins. It took everything he had to hold himself back from slitting the monster's throat and leading the beast to an untimely end, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that Shizuo's suffering was far from being over.

He would not be satisfied until the beast would grovel on his knees in front of him and beg for forgiveness. He harshly yanked on the blonde hair until the beast's ear was right next to his lips, baring his throat more openly to the switchblade. "Let's pretend for a second that I believe you," he said in a voice so cold that it took even him by surprise, "mind explaining why you've been following me?"

Unease raised the hairs on the back of his neck and Shizuo gulped, the almost tangible bloodlust that Izaya was giving off reminding him of all the cruelty the man was capable of committing. Izaya would most likely not believe him no matter what he said, yet he had no choice but to try. "Look, it's not what you think," he said, Izaya's humorless laugh making him cringe. "I was on my way to your apartment when I saw you coming out of the building and―"

"Did you beat up Shinra for the address?" Izaya asked with a frown and hoped that was not the case.

Shizuo felt as though an invisible fist gripped his heart and squeezed it without mercy the second he heard the question. "I would never do that." He knew that he had done a lot of bad things, but to go as far as to beat up his former friend for an address was not something he would ever do. "I got your business card from Tom-senpai," he answered reluctantly.

"Ah, guess who's not getting my help from now on?" said Izaya as a matter-of-fact. "So you thought that it'd be a good idea to kill me in my own home?"

"No...no, I... I wanted to apologize," he said and shuddered when he heard Izaya's dark chuckle, the hate simmering underneath that laugh almost palpable. "I swear. I only wanted to talk to you."

"Maa, maa, Shizu-chan, don't you know that lying is bad?"

"I'm not―"

"If you're not lying, why did you follow me around instead of approaching me?"

Shizuo bit into his lower lip in frustration until he felt the coppery taste of blood. "Because it's hard to talk to you after what I've done," he finally admitted, "and you kept sneaking around like a bastard instead of using the main streets. I was waiting for you to get off the dark alleys and into a populated area before approaching you. Fuck, I'm so pissed off right now," he growled. "This is not how I wanted to apologize..."

Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits as he looked askance into Shizuo's dark yellow ones after turning the man's head to see him better. "I can't figure out whether you're trolling me or you're just this stupid," was Izaya's scathing response, his voice tight with annoyance.

"I'm not the one who specializes in trolling, you fucking flea."

"Ah, that's true," Izaya conceded, "but that just means you're really this stupid, doesn't it?"

"I was leaving, you know? Why would I leave if I wanted to kill you?"

"I don't know, Shizu-chan, why would you? It's not like I could ever understand what goes on in that protozoic brain of yours. Besides, I called you stupid for thinking that you even had the right to apologize after what you've done, although your decision to follow me around was just as dumb, because now I can easily slice your throat and leave you here to choke on your own blood if I so desire. Hmm, I think I'd like that very much," he mused, enjoying the mental image of Shizuo giving his last gurgled breath as he bled to death at his feet before he tightened his grip on the blonde locks and thumped the brute's head into the wall hard enough to draw blood. "Ne, Shizu-chan, do you remember how many times you banged my head against concrete that night?"

"..."

Seeing how Shizuo remained silent, Izaya moved closer until his lips were almost touching the beast's cold ear, his hot breath making the brute shiver as he whispered, "I really thought that I was going to die long before you would have finished thrusting that disgusting piece of flesh into my broken body."

Shizuo grimaced, aghast by the question, and was overcome with nausea as images of that night slammed into the forefront of his mind. "Stop... please," he begged, not wanting to remember the cruel beast he had ended up turning into.

Izaya's lips began to tilt upwards in a maniacal grin, the knowledge that simply mentioning the events of that time in the alley bothered the beast only making him want to continue. "Did it feel good, hmm? Did you enjoy fucking me in the ass?" he said, wondering if perhaps this was how Shizuo had felt when he had him at his mercy. "Answer me!" he commanded before he banged Shizuo's head into the wall again. "Did it feel good to thrust into my bleeding body, yes or no??"

Shizuo swallowed hard. "Y-Yes, I enjoyed it," he said in a quiet voice, remorse lacing his words.

"And you still have the guts to say that you're sorry, huh?"

"I'm sorry..."

"Shut up, monster!"

"I'm so sorry..."

"I said, SHUT UP!"

"I'M SORRY!" Shizuo nearly shouted, guilt weighing so heavily on his heart that it felt as though he was suffocating. "I'm sorry," he repeated in a wheezy voice as he tried to wrench himself away from the fingers capturing his hair, suddenly feeling claustrophobic, an asphyxiating pain tearing at his heart.

"Shut the fuck up, beast!" Izaya snarled, his voice dripping all the venom and hatred he felt for the man in his grasp. "Your sorry means nothing to me."

Shizuo forced himself to keep his lips firmly closed, not wanting to further upset Izaya. He had known from the beginning that the Informant would care little for his apologies, but that hadn't stopped him from trying.

Izaya took a shaky breath, his whole body trembling in rage and knuckles turning white from the sheer effort it took to not sink the switchblade into the beast's throat. Kill him, end him, destroy him before he destroys you, said a dark voice in his head while the rational part of his brain besought him to halt acting out on such an impulse. Shizuo had indeed appeared to be walking away when Izaya had ambushed him, and he did sound earnest in his apology, something that the brute would have no reason to fake even if he could. It wasn't like the idiot had ever been a good actor.

Izaya had always been able to read the amalgam of brutish emotions crossing the monster's face―not that any of it would ever erase the pain and the suffering he was going through as a result of the brute's destructive actions―but at least it meant that the monster was suffering for his sins, and the more Shizuo suffered, the better Izaya felt at seeing the brute fall apart. Shizuo wasn't even mentioning Kasuka, which Izaya assumed would've been the first thing coming out from the beast's mouth the second they meet. Further investigation was necessary, but first he would have to verify whether or not Shizuo could keep his composure enough to not attack him. Abruptly, he jumped backwards, putting enough distance between himself and the beast to warrant his safe escape in case such action was necessary. "If you want to talk so badly, then talk, but not here."

"Huh," was the only thing falling from Shizuo's lips as he wearily wiped away some of the blood trickling down his neck.

Izaya scowled. "Keep walking. I'll tell you where to go."

Shizuo did as ordered, following Izaya's instructions each time the man told him to either go left or right until he found himself in a park. He watched as the man typed something on his phone and sent a message before he raised those almost crimson-looking eyes of his and glared at him with such hatred that almost made him quail from that gaze.

"Speak," Izaya said while going for one of his easygoing smiles but ending up falling a little short. His eyes locked on Shizuo's pained face and he couldn't help but convulsively flex his hands around the twin switchblades that he now always carried with him inside the pockets of his coat.

"I completely fucked up," Shizuo said ruefully as he moved his hands to pull out the cigarettes and the lighter, only to stiffen in distress when Izaya suddenly pulled out two switchblades and assumed a defensive position. Shit! "Look, I need a smoke, ok?"

Izaya inwardly cursed himself for the mishap, willing his body to relax enough to drop the defensive position. "Those things might kill you before I decide to do it myself, so maybe you should quit, ne~?" he tried to say in his usual singsong voice, hoping that he wouldn't embarrass himself any further.

Shizuo flicked open his lighter, the flame dancing in the dark as he slowly inclined his head to light up the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. "You're using two switchblades now," he said as a matter-of-fact, "that's smart. Too bad you only had one that night."

"I've learned my lesson now," Izaya said, lips set into a humorless smile. "What exactly do you want from me, my forgiveness by any chance? Sorry to burst your bubble, but you will never get it."

Shizuo took a drag from the cigarette before he thrust his cold hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I don't expect to ever be forgiven for what I've done."

"Then?" Izaya asked, a bit surprised at the brute's defeated tone.

"I finally understand now."

Izaya shot him a questioning look. "And what exactly might that be?"

"Everything was my fault flea, not yours, I know that now," he said, his tone bitter from all the self-hatred he felt.

Eyes widening in disbelief, Izaya stared at the too-human monster with his mouth agape, starting to believe Kasuka's words about the beast finally taking responsibility for his actions. If that was the case, he needed to confirm it once and for all. His eyes wandered to his phone's display screen before giving the beast his full attention.

Shizuo watched him smile, something ugly and familiar darkening the brown-red eyes before the words started rolling off the flea's tongue in an enthusiastic manner.

"If that's the case, you won't mind me breaking your little brother as payment for your oh-so-kind treatment from back then," Izaya said with a malicious smirk on his face, his hackles immediately rising at the hostility Shizuo flung at him head-on the moment he mentioned Kasuka's name. He heard the beast growl and he took an infinitesimally step backwards, hands tightening around his switchblades as he started to question the feasibility of his plan. You're playing with fire, Izaya, he told himself, yet he couldn't stop the next words from spilled past his lips. "Maybe next time I'm going to fuck him myself."

"Leave Kasuka out of this," Shizuo hissed, barely able to hold himself back as the emotional upheaval tore at his resolution to never again hurt the man before him.

"Why should I?" Izaya continued, his malevolent delight making Ikebukuro's beast snarl.

"Hurt me instead, break me, cut me, do whatever you want, just leave him alone," Shizuo begged, hands shaking in both anger and fear as he threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under the sole of his shoe.

"But Shizu-chan is a beast, so he'd hardly feel anything if I were to do any of those things. Hurting his little brother on the other hand... now that will surely hurt him, ne?"

"Please..." Shizuo tried again, trying his hardest to not lunge himself at the bastard and twist that neck until it broke with a sickening crunch.

Izaya smirked, finally hearing into the distance the specific noise he was waiting for. "I don't know why you're so against it," he said, ready to go for the finishing blow. "He'd probably not even bat an eyelid, or who knows, he might even enjoy it."

Shizuo's hands balled into fists as he felt his control quickly slipping away. "IZAYA!!!" he growled louder than before, drowning in the usual blind rage that took over each time he had to deal with Izaya, only to breathe in relief when Celty seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, causing dust to fly into his eyes before her bike came to a complete stop between them.

"Courier-san, you're three minutes late," Izaya admonished as he checked the time on his phone.

Celty got off the bike and approached him, her entire frame rigid with tension after realizing that she had dropped in the middle of a dangerous situation. [I'm sorry for being late,] she typed on her PDA and showed it to Izaya, trying really hard to pretend that Shizuo wasn't there because she didn't know how to act around him after finding out what had happened between the two men.

Izaya shrugged. "It's fine." He turned to Shizuo. "Relax, Shizu-chan, I was simply joking. Hurting Kasuka again would be redundant. I'm not such a boring person," he said and watched as the tension in Shizuo's body seemed to have left him all at once.

Celty only gave Shizuo a furtive glance before turning her attention back to Izaya. [You said you needed me to deliver something, so what is it?]

"Just something I'm carrying," he said in a serious tone, watching with no little amount of surprise at how relieved and grateful the beast seemed to be after telling him that he would leave Kasuka alone. You're so predictable, stupid beast.

Celty immediately got the message and used her black smoke to make a helmet for the Informant. She didn't know how to deal with Shizuo yet, nor did she want to, not when her thoughts and emotions in regard to his person were a jumbled mess, so instead of addressing the man, she decided to focus on the job and to deal with him another time.

Izaya took the helmet the Dullahan handed to him and got on the bike behind her. "She knows by the way," he said with the nastiest smirk he could muster, inwardly reveling at the way Shizuo's face twisted in anguish before Celty drove into the night and away from Ikebukuro's beast. He knew that he had risked a lot by trying to piss off the beast, but now he was certain that Shizuo was sorry after seeing him trying his best to not attack him even when Izaya kept threatening to hurt Kasuka. Breaking you will be so much fun, he thought excitedly. You will learn what a mistake it was to mess with Orihara Izaya.

Chapter 29: Hands of Fate

Five days after he had ran into Shizuo again for the first time in over a month, Izaya still couldn't get the encounter out of his head. It wasn't just the run-in with the beast that had thrown him off, but also Shizuo's overall behavior. It seemed like the man was feeling genuine regret for his past actions and Izaya already had a few ideas on how to make him pay for the audacity of cutting the wings off a god. He wasn't naive enough to believe that he could easily go back to being the exact same person he was before that night in the alley, but he had made up his mind to do everything in his power to climb back up to the high place in the sky where he belonged.

At least he was on the right track, because no matter how frightened he'd been during his last confrontation with Shizuo, he didn't end up running away and instead found the courage to confront the beast who had shattered his world into a million pieces. The simple knowledge that he could've easily ended the monster's miserable existence was enough to make him realize that he was not as weak as Shizuo had made him think and that he had the confidence to confront his rapist again without succumbing to terror. To say that he didn't feel dread would be a lie, but he hoped that he would manage to keep it in check during their next meeting.

The flash drive he had received from his contact just before he caught Shizuo following him around was something that he had worked on acquiring long before the unfortunate events that threw his life into chaos, and even though Namie was under the impression that he'd sat on his ass doing nothing for over two months, he'd actually worked to get his hands on the flash drive he now carried in the right pocket of his pants. All that was left to do now was to meet up with the client and hand it over to him. The man had been out of the country and now that he was back he had requested they met in Ikebukuro. Izaya had accepted without a second thought.

He was tired of running away and that was how he found himself in the accursed Tokyo district that he once used to love but which now gave him the shivers, his hands tightening around the switchblades he kept for protection inside the pockets of his jacket as he continued to walk towards the meeting place. He felt a bit annoyed that his filthy rich client chose to meet at a cheap restaurant in Ikebukuro, but it didn't really matter that much as long as he got paid. It took too much time, work and money to get his hands on the flash drive and as such he expected to be royally rewarded for his efforts. It was the only case he'd followed even while in agonizing pain because of the injuries that Shizuo had inflicted on him. The sooner he handed the flash drive, the faster he would hopefully forget if only for a little of those painful days when even sitting down almost brought tears to his eyes.

His eyes darted from one person to the other as he walked down the streets and he wondered if perhaps others could see that he was not the same person he used to be. Because of such thoughts, he couldn't help but feel tense each time one of his humans looked and pointed at him as though they knew something. It was a ridiculous thought in itself because obviously no one knew what had happened to him, but that still didn't stop the paranoia from making his hands tremble each time someone either laughed, smiled or sneered at him.

The logical part of his brain kept telling him to relax, that they were most likely doing it because he hadn't shown his face in Ikebukuro in a long time, but that still didn't stop him from feeling sick to his stomach. Luckily, he was not so far gone as to believe the crazy thoughts blooming in his mind, so he shoved them aside and focused on getting to the meeting place. With his mind made up, he forced himself to ignore the whispers and the comments and he focused on getting to the restaurant as quickly as possible.

It took him about twenty minutes to get there on foot, but by the time he reached the meeting place he was a wreck. The only consolation he had was that he hadn't ran into anyone with whom he would be forced to start a conversation; that was the last thing he wanted to do when he wasn't even sure he could speak without his voice trembling. He stood there outside the restaurant for a few minutes to calm down his racing heart until he found the strength to go inside.

All he had to do now in order to get paid was to hand over the flash drive. He took a deep breath and forced a smile on his face, the same easygoing one he always used whenever he had to deal with a client. The name of the man waiting for him inside was Ueda Shou, a Half Japanese-Half American rich businessman. To say that he was brilliant was an understatement considering how the man had ended up running his father's empire by the time he was thirty two, and even though it was the first time Izaya had finished a job for him, he had no doubts that he would get paid for his services. It was a well-known fact that Ueda Shou always paid his debts.

"Ueda-san," Izaya greeted as he sat down, "it's nice to finally meet you."

"Likewise, Orihara-san. I've heard many things about you, and although the jobs you take may not always be... legal, you always come through. I take it that you have the information I've requested?"

Izaya took out the flash drive from his pocket and placed it on the table. "I am unworthy of such praise, Ueda-san. I'm nothing more than one of the many Information Brokers this city has to offer."

Ueda smirked before taking a sip from the cheap sake he'd been served earlier. "Please, Orihara-san, modesty doesn't suit you, not when your reputation precedes you. You are the best Information Broker in both Ikebukuro and Shinjuku, otherwise I wouldn't have hired you to find my company's stolen data."

"In that case, I appreciate your confidence in my information gathering skills," Izaya said and shifted infinitesimally on the chair, something in the man's eyes making the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. For some reason, he had the impression that Ueda Shou was more dangerous than he could ever imagine, and because of that he decided that it was best to get out of there as soon as possible. Picking up the flash drive, he looked Ueda in the eyes. "I'll take my leave now." He got up and handed it to Ueda, barely suppressing a shudder at the man's disturbing smirk.

"Are you sure that you can't stay for a bit longer? The food they serve here may not be the best, but it's certainly enjoyable," the businessman said as he pocketed the flash drive.

"I'm sorry, but I have other things to take care of, so if you'll excuse me..."

"I understand. The money will be wired into your account as soon as I'm done here. It was really nice meeting you face to face," Ueda said and took another sip from the cup of sake.

Izaya's cheerful mask stayed on until he left the restaurant, his smile morphing into disgust the moment he was out the door. There was nothing to indicate that Ueda posed any danger to him, or that he wasn't an honest businessman trying to recover his stolen data, but that didn't stop Izaya from wanting to get away. He had obviously looked into the man's past, because Izaya liked to know everything about his clients, but there was nothing strange about him besides the man's obsession with cheap Japanese food which he always sought whenever he was in the country because he never got to spend much time in Japan even though it was his home. That or perhaps dining at cheap restaurants was a good way to avoid prying eyes. The only reason Izaya had even accepted the job to begin with was because he found the whole situation to be amusing.

Ueda had been certain that one of his brothers was the one stealing information and selling it to the highest bidder, but no matter how hard he tried to prove it, he couldn't, not until he had Ikebukuro's Informant step in. Ueda was the youngest son, yet he ended up running the company because his two older half-brothers were nowhere near as good as he was when it came to taking care of the family's business, yet those two idiots were still under the wrong impression that they owned the company and that a half-breed like Ueda deserved nothing more than to die in a ditch.

Dysfunctional families always caught Izaya's attention because they were interesting to study, so the fact that he got a fat paycheck for doing something he liked was a nice bonus. Besides, the good thing about dealing with Ueda was that he didn't have to worry about getting screwed over, because the man had a reputation of always paying his debts.

Happy to finally be done with the job, he had to decide what to do next. He could either roam Ikebukuro for a while and perhaps visit Shinra, or he could go back home and do some work. Truth be told, he was sick and tired of his apartment, so a stroll through Ikebukuro sounded like a good idea, but then he remembered how that accursed day he was only taking a stroll through Ikebukuro and also how badly the aforementioned stroll had ended. No, I can't think like that anymore, he told himself just before he forced his legs to move forward, the idea of visiting Shinra sounding better and better by the second.

Knowing how dangerous Ikebukuro was, he shoved his hands inside the pockets of his jacket and curled his fingers around the handles of his switchblades. That way, he was always ready to defend himself at a moment's notice. He cringed at the idea of seeing Celty again, but at least the Dullahan mostly treated him the same way as before, which helped a lot because the last thing he needed was for her to suddenly be nice just because of what had happened between him and Shizuo. He was actually surprised that Celty gave Shizuo the cold shoulder that time when he had called her in the park, which most likely meant that she couldn't forgive him for what he had done.

He took a gamble by telling Celty what happened, and even though he now felt uncomfortable that she knew, it was always interesting to observe her actions. That time in the park and then afterwards in front of his apartment building, she had been tense around him, more so than usual, and she seemed to have dropped the insults as well, which was a huge progress, but even after all that, she was still incapable of hiding her dislike of him. Izaya himself didn't lose anything from revealing the truth, while Shizuo ended up losing his best friend, which meant that, in a way, it was almost funny for the so called 'good guy' to lose his friends to the 'bad guy.'

Izaya knew that it was hard to physically hurt a man like Heiwajima Shizuo, so psychological torture was the best way to break him. He now understood that he shouldn't have tried to hurt Kasuka, not when he himself ended up getting hurt in the process, and he was starting to have mixed feelings about Slon, because even though he'd been one of his humans, he was also someone capable of committing rape.

He shook his head, hoping that he would stop thinking about the person he had ended up killing with his own two hands. There's no point in dwelling on the past now, he told himself just as he was about to cross the street, not expecting to get grabbed by both his arms. For a split second he thought that he was going to be sick, but in the next one his instinct kicked in and before he even knew what he was doing, he tore himself away from their hold and pressed his switchblades against the throats of his younger sisters. They all looked at each other in surprise for a few suffocating moments, until Mairu shot him a glare and smacked his hand away.

"Iza-nii, move that switchblade away from Kururi's neck before I shove it down your throat," Mairu said in a bored tone.

"Ah... sorry," he said and lowered both his arms, cringing at his monumental blunder. They were the last people he expected to run into on his way to Shinra, and now that he was seeing them again, he didn't even know what to say. The three of them weren't like most siblings who worried and cared for one another. If anything, Izaya was almost sure they would be happy if he died.

Mairu's eyes narrowed into slits and she glared at him. "I see that Iza-nii is still as paranoid as ever," she said before pulling Kururi closer to her.

Izaya pushed the blades back in and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket where they belonged. "Being paranoid is what kept me alive so far."

"We thought you got killed," Mairu said as she took a picture of him and typed something before sending the message and snapping her phone shut. "All right, all done now."

"What did you do?" he asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion because his two sisters were never up to anything good.

"Some people were betting on whether you were dead or alive, so I gave them the proof that you're still alive."

Izaya sighed loudly, knowing that he couldn't win against them no matter what he did, and if proving that their brother was alive was what they had in mind, then there was nothing he could do to stop them. "Yes, well, as you can see, I'm still very much alive," he said just before he was completely taken by surprise when Kururi gave him a hug. Eh? He looked down at Kururi, not knowing how to react, his sisters being the only two humans besides Shizuo that he didn't know how to deal with. They used to annoy him a lot when they were children. He could still clearly remember the day when he had told them how they were copies of each other and as such they had no real purpose, so he couldn't understand why Kururi would do something so nice.

"We're on our way to meet Mikage-sensei, so we have to go now. We'll see you around, Iza-nii," Mairu said and pulled Kururi away from their brother before she started walking away.

Izaya flinched at hearing Mikage's name, but he pushed that aside because he was curious about something else. "Wait! I want to ask you something," he said and almost laughed when they both turned around at the same time. They really are like copies of each other. "How would you feel if I died?"

Mairu thought about it for a bit before giving her brother an honest answer. "I think that we would be sad and that we would miss you in the beginning, but after a while we would laugh at you for being dumb enough to get killed by Heiwajima Shizuo."

"I see..." he said before turning around and walking away, his brittle smile proof of how their words hurt him more than he ever wanted to admit.

No one really seemed to care about him besides Shinra, which was ridiculous in itself, because the doctor wasn't supposed to care about anyone except Celty. Humans were as irrelevant to Shinra as they were important to Izaya, so it was ironic that two such people could ever be friends. Then again, neither of them was normal, and that was another reason to pay him a visit; it always made him feel a bit better whenever they talked. Luck however was not on his side that day, not after running into the van gang, as though the universe was conspiring to give him a hard time. He tried to sneak past them without being noticed, but the idiot Dotachin spotted him, the man having the annoying talent of noticing everyone around him.

"Oi, Izaya, wait! Oi!" Kadota kept calling him to get his attention.

Izaya grit his teeth in frustration but put on a smile nonetheless before he turned around and made his way to the van. "Dotachin, long time no see."

"Izayan is still alive!" said Erika as she poked her head through the slightly opened van door.

"I'm not that easy to kill," Izaya bragged with a smirk on his face.

Kadota laughed and gave him a pat on the back. "Just like a cockroach."

Seeing how Kadota was actually a bit happy to see him alive, Izaya decided to ignore the offensive remark. Dotachin wasn't a bad enough guy to want to see him dead. He chuckled, already starting to feel a bit better. "That's no way to talk me, Dotachin."

"What's with you and your obsession with calling people retarded nicknames?" Kadota asked, exasperated.

Izaya shrugged, and then chuckled. "Dotachin is Dotachin."

Kadota shook his head and leaned against the van. "Seriously now, where were you?"

Izaya almost flinched at the question, but he succeeded in keeping his smirk even though he knew that it must've faltered for a moment. "Busy," was his simple answer.

"You know, I asked Shizuo if he saw you around, and you know what he said?" he asked Izaya, wanting to know what had happened between the two of them. He still clearly remembered that time when he ran into Shizuo and how surprised he was about the man's strange behavior and his refusal to answer any of his questions regarding Izaya, as well as pretty much seeing him flee as though he had something to hide. He was certain that something bad had happened between them, but he couldn't imagine what that was exactly. The only thing he knew was that it had to be more than their usual banter to make them both act so strangely. "Izaya?" he asked, eyes narrowing in confusion when he noticed how pale the Informant had turned after hearing his question.

"No idea, but like I said, nothing happened, just the usual," he said and waved a dismissive hand, hoping that Dotachin would stop questioning him.

Kadota's eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at Izaya for blatantly lying to him. "I might not be you, but please don't insult my intelligence."

Erika nodded before jumping out of the van and closing the door behind her. "Dotachin is smart," she said and smiled.

"Tch, you're both still as annoying as ever," Izaya said as he folded his arms in front of him.

"Izayan is hiding something," Erika chirped.

Izaya snapped, tired of their questions and sick of people prying into his life. "That's none of your business!"

"Whoa, relax, I was jus―" Kadota started but never got to finish because he heard a familiar voice from somewhere behind him.

"Oi, Kadota, have you seen th―" Shizuo asked and then choked on the words when he saw who else was there with them.

They all froze, their eyes wide as they stared at one another, the tension between them almost palpable.

Shizuo swallowed the lump in his throat and he had to force his mouth to open in order to speak. "Izaya..." he said softly, not failing to notice the way in which Izaya unconsciously moved behind Kadota. "H-Hey..."

Izaya's broken laughter shattered the awkward silence. He didn't like being taken by surprise. He wanted to meet Shizuo again, but he wanted to be the one who sought him out instead of running into him when he wasn't mentally prepared to face him. It truly was the worst possible way in which they could've met that day.

Kadota looked at them in confusion, not sure what was going on between the two archenemies. Izaya would usually run and Shizuo would start chasing him, yet there they were, staring at one another and not doing anything else. "Oi, what happened?" he asked again, hoping to get an answer, only to almost flinch when Izaya shot him a murderous glare.

The timing couldn't have been worse, thought Izaya as he kept glaring at Kadota. Then again, perhaps this is a great opportunity. The corners of his lips moved upwards and his smirk turned feral at the thought of torturing the beast some more. He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Okay, all right, I'll tell you what happened," he said and watched as the color drained from Shizuo's face.

"Izaya, w-wait," Shizuo said in a weak, almost pleading voice.

Izaya lowered his hands and chuckled. "Why? Dotachin here asked me a question."

Kadota reluctantly nodded.

"You see, Shizu-chan caught me a couple of months ago," Izaya said and laughed when he heard the gasps coming from Dotachin and Erika, his eyes sparkling with malicious delight at the way in which Shizuo's entire body language screamed misery and dread.

"What happened...?" Kadota dared to ask.

Izaya leaned against the van and tried to come up with a way to tell them the truth but at the same time keep it hidden from them. No matter how much he wanted to hurt the beast, he couldn't go around telling people what really happened between them. All he had to do was to phrase his answer in such a way that Dotachin would think that he got beaten while the brute would understand exactly what Izaya meant. He chuckled darkly, now knowing what to say in order to inflict maximum damage. "Shizu-chan took great pleasure in breaking my body, you wouldn't even believe it! He was so brutal that by the time he was finally done, I couldn't even walk anymore. Ah, Shizu-chan truly is a monster..."

Kadota flinched at the confession, knowing that Shizuo must've really lost it if he'd hurt Izaya that badly.

Erika on the other hand squealed. "Shizu-Shizu and Izayan finally admitted their love for one another!" she chirped and clapped her hands. "I always had a feeling that Shizu-Shizu was a beast in bed." She turned to Izaya, her eyes sparkling. "I knew it! Shizu-Shizu must be really big if you couldn't even walk afterwards."

All three males stared at her in disbelief, both Izaya and Shizuo feeling faint while Kadota was simply disgusted by her words.

"Shut up," Shizuo said, somewhat in shock after hearing her disgusting speculations. She was obviously not that far from the truth, but she got it all wrong nonetheless.

"How can you fantasize so easily about men you know in real life?" Kadota asked and shook his head in disapproval.

"But we all know that Shizu-Shizu and Izayan secretly love each other!" Erika continued, now in full fujoshi mode.

"Shut up," Shizuo repeated, this time a bit louder as he fixated her with the full force of his glare, rage starting to dangerously surge through his veins.

Erika pouted, not yet realizing the danger she was in. "You can't hide it anymore, so there's no point in denying it!"

Izaya's knees turned to jelly and he feared they would buckle if he stayed there for much longer. He should've predicted that Erika would twist his words to suit her fucked up fantasies.

"SHUT UP!" Shizuo shouted, her ignorance obviously hurting Izaya, the flash of awareness in those brown-red eyes telling him that Izaya knew what was about to happen if the fujoshi didn't shut up.

Erika didn't seem fazed by the outburst, so she continued with her ignorant rant. "If I were to guess, I'd say that it was rough, passionate sex. Did Shizu-Shizu make Izayan scream in pleasure over and over again?" she asked, her brain getting bombarded by mental images of the two men engaging in sexual acts.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Shizuo snapped just before he stomped to the nearest stop sign he could find and uprooted it from concrete, his expression wild as he turned around, his eyes zero-ing in on the fujoshi. "Shut up," he repeated, this time in a tone so dangerous that made Erika cower in fear.

Kadota moved in-between the livid Shizuo and the terrified Erika in an attempt to stop the conflict before it went any further, but even he knew that nothing could save his friend if Shizuo didn't snap out of it. "Calm down, Shizuo. I know she's a bit strange, but there's no reason to overreact," he said, and then almost felt like shrinking back himself when Shizuo stomped towards them. He did however succeed in keeping his ground, and by the time Shizuo reached him, both Walker and Saburo were back and that helped a bit because Walker pulled Erika away while Kadota tried to tackle Shizuo in an attempt to distract him from his target.

It was then when Shizuo finally came back to his senses and he dropped the street sign, Erika's terrified expression making his stomach churn. I could've hurt her, he thought, struck by shock. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice trembling. His eyes darted around to see how Izaya was doing, but he wasn't there anymore, so Shizuo dashed past the van gang, feeling regret for losing his control like that. I'm sorry, Izaya. I'm so sorry...

Chapter 30: Reasonable Doubt

Izaya's steps faltered not too long after he rushed out of there with quick edgy strides, his heart rate accelerating the moment he had heard Erika's haunting words. Incessant chills kept oscillating across his spine as images of the cruel way in which he had been raped―as opposed to what the disgusting fujoshi had envisioned―crashed into the forefront of his mind, an oppressive feeling of suffocation giving him the impression that he was being smothered. He struggled to breathe, but the pain in his chest was making the task extremely difficult so his hand shot up to the wall he was walking next to, fearing that his knees would buckle and that he would collapse in the middle of the street as the numbness started to spread throughout his body.

Trembling, he leaned against it with his right shoulder for a few moments before he stumbled forward, finally becoming aware through the barrage of terrifying images that he was having a panic attack. Startled by the realization, his quivering hands clenched into fists, eyelids fluttering for a few moments before revealing vexed brown-red eyes, teeth gritting in irritation and fury simmering just below the surface at the shameful way in which his body ended up reacting after hearing the ignorant woman's ghastly words. He kept on scuffing his feet across the ground, his fitful ragged breaths making his vision flicker and heightening the sense of nausea burning through the pit of his stomach.

He inwardly cursed Karisawa Erika, the depraved woman having completely startled him with her delusional assumptions, reminding him just how damaged he still was after what had happened. Shizuo's ferocious attack had altered his mind in ways he never thought possible. Infuriated by the outcome of his accidental run-in with the beast, the fujoshi and Dotachin, he barely restrained himself from slamming a fist into the dirty wall he was using as support, the fog in his mind instantly clearing the moment he felt the air behind him shift and he was roughly shoved face-first against the rough surface. Something sharp was swiftly thrust into his left side and he opened his mouth in a wordless cry, eyes widening in disbelief at not having sensed the peril until it was too late. Trying to reach either of his switchblades, his hands bolted towards the pockets of his coat, but his attempt culminated in failure when both his arms were grabbed by two of his attackers while the third one emptied his pockets before they started dragging him away towards a more secluded area. The knife was still wedged into his side to most likely discourage him from screaming for help, the threat of that sharp blade sinking deeper into his flesh keeping him compliant despite his body's urge to get away from it at any cost.

"What do y-you want?" he asked through clenched teeth as he was steered around a corner, jaw stiffening from the sheer effort it took to not cry out in pain each time he was forced to take a step forward, the blade painfully jabbing into his flesh. Glaring at the uncommunicative men on either side, he inwardly cursed, fuming about not only the stab wound but also about the cut in his favorite coat. After what Shizuo had done to him that night, he found himself unable to wear his other coat no matter how many times he had it cleaned, eventually resigning himself to the loss and dressing Kasuka in it before shipping him off to the beast. Turning his head away from the guy who was holding onto both the knife and his left arm, his eyes widened in apprehension when he realized that he was being led towards the far end of a closed off alley, most likely the place where they were planning to kill him.

He started struggling and a strangled cry escaped him, the sound reverberating off the walls when the knife was abruptly pulled out of his side and he was shoved away roughly, the momentum making his body painfully collide with the wall before his feet finally found purchase. Grunting in pain, he leaned against the wall and turned around, the black T-shirt he was wearing underneath the coat clinging to his skin as a result of the blood pouring out of the stab wound and soaking the material. He raised his head to glower at the three men, his eyes widening in terror when he noticed Ikebukuro's beast stomping towards them, a sense of impending torment that was about to come slamming into his being so hard that he ended up quailing in the corner, the fury in the man's darkened eyes bringing back in vivid detail the sensation of being assaulted. When it came right down to it, he didn't trust the beast to not lose it and attack him again, Heiwajima Shizuo being nothing more than a monster pretending to be human.

"What's going on here?" Shizuo growled out the words, eyes burning with rage the moment they fell on the bloody knife poised in his direction.

"Nonya business!" scowled the one holding it, his friends fishing out the switchblades they had previously snatched from the man they had been hired to kill.

"It is my fucking business if you shitheads try to take away my prey!" he snarled, furious at the weak creatures before him for creating a scenario that reminded him so much of what had transpired between himself and Izaya in a not so different alley.

"And who the hell are you?"

"Heiwajima Shizuo, Ikebukuro's strongest," he answered curtly, their surprised gasps telling him they knew who he was.

"In that case, go right ahead," said the man with the bloody knife as he moved out of the way, anxious to watch Ikebukuro's strongest beat the other man to death.

For the first time in over two months, Izaya felt hopelessness. It was bad to run into Shizuo on a good day, but for the man to find him when he was both injured and weaponless was the worst outcome of his current imbroglio. His eyes remained transfixed on Shizuo's scowling face as the man approached him and he couldn't help but wonder if Ikebukuro's beast would be merciful this time around and simply finish him off by twisting his neck or by choking him to death instead of doing his best to break both his body and mind before leaving him to die in a pool of his own blood. He trembled despite himself as Shizuo narrowed the distance until he was right in his face, the proximity to the beast making his muscles tense and his body push harder into the wall in an attempt to somehow disappear through it.

He had no doubts that Shizuo would finish him off, not after hearing the beast refer to him as prey, and he barely stifled a wail at the unfairness of it all. "Shizu-chan is such a liar," he said, his voice sounding bitter, betrayed, as though he was expecting more out of Shizuo after their discussion in the park. He accusingly glared at him, but the beast grabbed him by the coat and he jerked backwards, eyes widening in disbelief when the monster proceeded to unbutton it and yank it off his left shoulder before tugging at the bloody T-shirt. He tried to wrestle his way out of the beast's hold, but the hand pushing him into the wall was unyielding while the blood gushing out of his wound left him too sluggish to efficiently fight back.

"Holy shit, dude, you gonna do what I think ya gonna do?" Shizuo heard one of the punks say and he snapped, his fist flying straight into the wall. The punch left behind a crater next to Izaya’s ear, the flea's shocked expression as the skinny boneless body slid down the wall only serving to further increase his already overflowing fury. "KILL! KILL! KILL!" he chanted but struggled to maintain control, the urgent need to do something that didn't involve violence burning him from within, knowing that if he let loose, it would most likely end in a massacre. Shoving trembling hands into his pockets, he hurriedly drew whatever he found inside, including the flea's switchblade and his apartment keys, immediately glaring at them, irritated, before shoving the useless items back in and lighting up a cigarette. He took a drag from it, an imperceptible amount of tension dissipating from his body when the nicotine finally filled his lungs.

Infinitesimally calmer now, he turned his attention towards the men who had stabbed Izaya, something sharp stinging his back, once, twice, thrice, before he finally turned around, catching the flea's wrist mid-swing on its way to stabbing him into his chest. He froze, torn between crushing it and letting go, until their eyes locked and it was like he was seeing that same frightened yet accusing look from that night when he had ended up doing the biggest mistake of his life. Don't do it! Don't do it! Don't fucking do it! he inwardly repeated until he found the strength to pull back his hand before losing the battle and pulverizing Izaya's wrist. He roughly pushed away the livid flea before he turned towards the others with the intention of using them as an outlet for his anger, figuring that it was better to crush them to smithereens instead of taking it out on Izaya.

"IMMA KILL YOU DEAD! IMMA KILL YOU DEADER THAN DEAD!" Shizuo barked, the deep fury that seemed to make his eyes burn startling the three men into a violent recoil. He dashed towards the one with the bloody knife and punched him so hard in the face that the man ended up flying out of the alley and across the street, his friends shrieking in horror while they tried to run, their short sprint ending abruptly when Shizuo grabbed them by the back of their necks and banged their heads together, a few droplets of blood landing on his face. Not yet satisfied, he threw them in the same direction as the first guy, knowing that if he saw their faces again he would most likely kill them. Still pissed off, he was about to take another drag from the cigarette when hysterical laughter erupted from somewhere behind him, the sight of a laughing flea bringing back more of the bad memories that often haunted him.

"What are you going to do now, hmm? Kill me or try to break me?" Izaya asked once he stopped laughing, the switchblade he'd snatched from Shizuo's pocket now pointed in his archenemy's direction. He couldn't believe his eyes when he realized that the beast had been walking around carrying the weapon he had taken from him more than two months prior. He briefly wondered why Shizuo would do such a thing, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it when the beast was right in front of him, most likely enjoying his distress. "Sorry to disappoint you, Shizu-chan, but I won't beg this time either," he stated in a confident voice. “I will never completely break,” he added, even though he dreaded what the beast would do next.

Shizuo watched the brittle smile on the flea's face and he felt his heart plummet. He should've crushed those men the second he had seen them, but he hadn't wanted to risk beating them up without checking if that blood really belonged to the flea, knowing full well that the bastard would most likely lie or invent some stupid shit if he'd asked him. He knew well enough what a fucked up human being Izaya was and how much he enjoyed screwing with people's minds for his own sick amusement. He also didn't want to risk them killing Izaya before he could stop them, so he had no choice but to pretend to want to kill him as well. "I'm not going to do anything," he finally said and took another drag from the cigarette, the bloody switchblade in Izaya's hand reminding him of his own stab wounds.

Scowling, Izaya glared daggers at him. "How can you say that after you almost ripped my clothes off?!" he asked and quickly pulled the coat back over his left shoulder. "Oh, I see! You wanted to get rid of the audience first! Shizu-chan is either really possessive or extremely shy."

Shizuo's brow twitched in annoyance and he snapped the cigarette in half with a low growl before taking a deep breath and trying to calm down enough to not want to break the louse's bones so badly. "Fucking flea," he mumbled," let's get you to Shinra."

Izaya blinked in surprise and watched the blond with a confused expression as the beast turned around and started walking away. "What...?" he asked none too smartly, his brain still trying to process the visual and audio information it was receiving, finding it hard to believe that Ikebukuro's beast would simply walk away after he had just stabbed him multiple times. He shook his head in an attempt to wake up, but he immediately regretted it when the world around him continued to spin even after he'd stopped. Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes and waited for it to stop spinning before he finally took a step forward and followed the beast, his right hand still tightly clenched around the switchblade. "Shizu-chan, wait!" he chirped and staggered out of the alley and into the street. "So let me get this straight... you're not going to rape me again?" he asked and waited for that look of absolute guilt to cross the beast's face, a satisfied smile gracing his lips the moment Shizuo flinched and seemed to shrink back as though he'd just been whipped.

Shizuo cursed and lit up another cigarette, the flea's question hurting him more than the stab wounds the insect had previously inflicted. "No, flea, I'm not going to r-rape you again," he stuttered after exhaling the smoke, hating the way his voice had sounded.

"Aww, Shizu-chan finally found the courage to say the word! Iza-chan is so proud of you!" he cooed.

"Shut up and move already," he grumbled, "or are you planning to stay here and bleed to death?"

"Oh!" Izaya exclaimed, surprised that he had almost forgotten about his stab wound while talking to Shizuo. "It's a good thing that Shinra's apartment is nearby. Ah, but before we go, I need some information." Ignoring Shizuo's confused look, he headed towards the three men writhing in pain on the other side of the street. "Shizu-chan, can you go fetch my switchblades?" he asked and then chuckled when he heard the brute mumble something under his breath before going to do as he was told. "Hey, you, wake up!" Izaya said and proceeded to crush the man's hand under the sole of his shoe. "Who sent you?"

"Ple-please s-stop!" the man cried out in pain.

"I will if you tell me who sent you," he promised, his voice so sweet that it was almost nauseating.

"Ue... Ueda..."

"I see," Izaya said flatly, his expression blank as he kicked the man in the side as hard as he could. "That's for stabbing me."

"Got 'em," Shizuo said from across the street.

"Shizu-chan is like a bloodhound!" he chirped and languidly walked over to retrieve his weapons from the brute's hand, snatching them none too gently and shoving them into the left pocket of his coat, still unwilling to let go of the bloody switchblade he had previously retrieved from the beast’s pocket. He pulled out his phone and tried calling Celty, immediately scowling again when the Dullahan didn’t answer. He glared at Shizuo as though it was his fault, pissed off at having to walk all the way to Shinra's place when he was injured. "Move, beast!" he ordered and then laughed when Shizuo muttered some unflattering words under his breath before going ahead. Now that he wasn't in immediate danger of getting assaulted by the brute, he fished out his phone again, dialed a number and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

"Orihara-san, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call so soon after our meeting?"

"I must confess that I wasn't expecting you to send people to kill me," Izaya said in a monotone voice in an attempt to hide his irritation.

"What...?"

"I guess that it was wrong of me to assume that Ueda-san was an honorable man."

"Orihara-san, I did not send anyone to kill you."

"The man who just stabbed me gave me your name."

"I assure you that I had nothing to do with it… but it might've been one of my brothers," Ueda added as an afterthought.

"That's possible," Izaya conceded.

"I apologize for getting you involved in this. I will make sure that neither of my brothers will ever bother you again, I give you my word."

Izaya sighed loudly. "If Ueda-san gives me his word, then there's nothing more I can do about it."

"I will take care of it."

"Please do," Izaya said before ending the conversation and looking at the beast, the blood soaking the black jacket bringing a sadistic smirk to his face at the memory of his switchblade sinking into the brute's flesh. The man was really a monster, walking around with three stab wounds as though it was nothing while Izaya himself was having troubles keeping up with him while sporting a single stab wound. The whole situation seemed surreal and he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps he was hallucinating.

"You should put that switchblade away," Shizuo suggested once they approached the main street.

"No."

"You're going to scare people if you walk around like that," he tried again, hoping to reason with him.

"No means no, you protozoan!" Izaya snapped before inhaling a ragged breath, his left hand shooting towards the nearest wall to use as a support.

"Fine," Shizuo said wearily just before he turned left around a corner and kept walking for a while until he noticed that the bastard was not following. Cursing under his breath, he went back and found the insect leaning against a wall, looking as though he was about to pass out. "Okay, that's it, we're doing this my way," he muttered before reaching out to sling Izaya’s arm over his shoulder, the flea's switchblade flying to his neck so fast that he didn't even have time to react.

"What do you think you're doing?" Izaya growled through clenched teeth, pushing the switchblade deeper until blood started to flow down the beast's neck.

"Apparently getting cut by the bastard I was trying to help," he said softly as to not deepen the incision done with an expert’s precision.

Izaya chuckled darkly. "Does helping me make you feel less guilty about what you did to me?"

"Yeah," was his simple, honest answer.

Lowering his switchblade in a sign of begrudged compliance, he stared at Shizuo with the cruelest smirk he could muster, trying not to think of the way the proximity made his skin crawl or how disgusted he felt just from being touched by the beast. "Lead the way," he said, his mind going in overdrive trying to come up with ways to punish the protozoan as soon as they got to Shinra's place. Normally, he would've rather crawled by himself all the way there, but the idea of seeing how uncomfortable Shizuo would be around Shinra and Celty seemed too good to pass. He knew that it would crush the beast to see his friends look at him with hate, disgust and perhaps even disappointment, and Izaya couldn't wait to see his wounded expression.

After hooking an arm around the flea's back, Shizuo proceeded to walk towards the doctor's apartment, wincing each time someone either screamed or yelped in shock at the sight of the bloody switchblade and of their injured bodies. He barely restrained himself from seizing the damn thing once and for all. By the time they reached the apartment building, Izaya looked about ready to pass out. "Almost there," he said and dragged the flea up the stairs and into the elevator, not failing to notice the way in which the man stiffened the moment they were alone. What a messed up day, he thought. He couldn't wait for the moment when he could finally unhand Izaya because it felt damn awkward to be so close to the man after what had happened between them. He almost sighed in relief once they were out of the elevator, but the feeling was soon replaced by dread at the thought of having to face Shinra. His eyes drifted over to Izaya's smirking face as they kept walking, and that's when he realized why the flea had accepted his help in the first place. "Bastard," he hissed and then watched as the man ignored him and banged his fist against the door, leaving a few smudges of blood behind. The door swished as it opened, Shinra's furious expression almost making him quake.

"What did you do?" Shinra asked in a low, dangerous tone, heart beating wildly inside his rib cage and his right hand tightening around the scalpel he carried around in the pocket of his lab coat.

"As much as I'd love to see you attack Shizu-chan, I'll go right ahead and say that this is not his fault," he said while pointing to his bloody side, "although I must confess that I thought of lying just to see you punch him again."

Shinra glared, his grip around the scalpel loosening as some of the tension left his body. “What stopped you?”

“The memory of you butchering my bullet wound,” Izaya tiredly uttered.

"Here, let me help you inside," Shinra offered, unable to stand the Shizuo’s presence any longer.

"It's fine, I have Shizu-chan here to help me, you go get everything ready," he told the doctor, enjoying the brute's discomfort as the beast dragged him inside and dumped him onto the coffee table before straightening his back and standing there uncomfortably. "What's wrong, beast?"

"I should go," Shizuo said through clenched teeth before he ran a hand through his dyed locks.

"Yes, you should. Please get out of my house," Shinra demanded, disgust lacing his words.

Shizuo almost sighed in relief at the words, more than happy to get out of there, but Izaya grabbed his wrist before he even had a chance to move a muscle, the man's cruel smirk telling him that his torture was far from being over.

"Shizu-chan is hurt too! You're a doctor, Shinra; you can't just chase him out of your house before treating his injuries!" Izaya complained with a pout.

"Watch me," Shinra hissed and proceeded to push Shizuo away, his attempt at kicking the man out of his apartment being hampered by Izaya who refused to let go of the wrist he had previously captured.

"But Shinra," Izaya whined, "he could die. Do you really want him to die?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the brute's face so that he could see exactly how much it would hurt him to hear the answer.

"Yes, just die, asshole!" Shinra viciously spat out the words and kept pushing, hoping that Izaya would let go this time.

Izaya watched with a sort of twisted satisfaction at the way in which Shizuo's body seemed to completely deflate at Shinra's words, as though all of his energy had been sucked right out of him. "That's right, beast," he viciously spat out the words, "your friends hate you so much, they wish for your death. Was it worth it?" he asked and watched Shizuo's face twist in agony.

"If they hate me so much, they should've just let me die when I wanted to!" Shizuo wailed and tore himself away from their grips, limbs shaking with fine tremors.

Izaya gaped at him, for once at a complete loss for words.

"Shoulda died..." Shizuo added in a trembling voice.

"You tried to kill yourself?" Izaya asked once he found his voice again.

Shinra gave a grunt of assent. "He did, but Celty and I stopped him. The coward tried to run away from responsibility by ending his pathetic life."

"That's not what I was trying to do!" Shizuo snarled, pissed off at how they were misunderstanding his actions.

"Shizu-chan doesn't have the right to die, because I'm not done yet," Izaya declared, his brown-red eyes glowing dangerously. "Now sit down, beast!" he ordered, enjoying the looks of confusion on both Shinra and Shizuo's faces. "Sit!"

Shinra raised his arms in a sign of defeat. "I give up. He can stay, but I'm not treating any of his wounds. I'd rather get beaten within an inch of my life than help this monster," he said and proceeded to move Izaya to the room he used as a lab. "Celty will be home soon."

"Don't you dare leave while I'm getting sewed up," Izaya warned, scuffing his feet across the floor and out of the living room while leaning against Shinra.

Shizuo stared at their retreating backs, only allowing his worn out body to collapse on the coffee table once they were out of sight. Hunching forward, he tugged at his hair in despair, the impression that he was plummeting towards a deep, dark abyss squeezing his heart so tightly that he could hardly breathe. Shoulda let me die...

Chapter 31: Howl of the Gathered

Shinra grit his teeth as he helped Izaya out of his coat and then out of the bloody T-shirt, trying his best to not completely snap at the man. "Sit!" he ordered and pointed at the hospital bed before he stomped towards the other side of the room to pick up disinfectant as well as some gauze to clean up the wound before sewing it up.

Izaya mechanically sat down, too distracted by Shizuo's confession to notice the doctor's furious expression until the man was right in his face, ferocious eyes staring at him as though he was about ready to slaughter him. Startled, he recoiled from the glare, knowing full well just how dangerous the mad doctor was when he lost it. "W-What...?" he stuttered, wondering why his friend was so enraged.

"What you ask...? What?" he growled and grabbed Izaya's arm to pull him closer so that he could clean the wound.

Izaya nearly trembled at the fury emanating from the doctor and he clenched his jaw and tried not to flinch as the man kept staring at him, the silence stretching for what felt like an eternity before Shinra finally released him and proceeded to clean the wound none too gently. He nearly recoiled again when Shinra threw him a glare, a frightening thought taking root in his mind and refusing to fade away. Now worried about what the man would do, he watched as Shinra threw away the gauze, his eyes following his every move. He bit into his lower lip in apprehension when the doctor picked up the needle with the holder and moved to sew the wound. "W-Wait! Wait!" he screeched when it looked like the frightening thought from mere moments before was about to turn into reality.

"Is there a problem?" Shinra asked in a cold voice, Izaya's reckless behavior infuriating him so much that he could barely restrain himself from smacking the idiot.

"You can't be s-serious about this!" Izaya said in a trembling voice, his eyes momentarily flickering down to the needle before locking with the doctor's dark grey ones. He wasn't one to be afraid of humans in general, but Kishitani Shinra was no ordinary man and as such he dreaded to be anywhere near him when the doctor was in one of his sadistic moods. Judging by the way in which he was staring at him, it didn't look like he was planning to stand down, so Izaya pushed him away and jumped off the bed, wincing when more blood gushed from the stab wound. "I'd rather go to a hospital instead of getting tortured by you again," he said through clenched teeth, his brows furrowing in confusion when he heard him sigh.

"Fine, I will use local anesthesia," Shinra said and went to pick up a syringe.

Izaya watched him for a few moments before he reluctantly sat down again, feeling as though he had just dodged a bullet. He wasn't one to complain about pain in general, but after the agony he'd suffered because of Shizuo, he preferred to avoid it as much as possible. He knew that no matter what he said, Shinra would still be mad at him, so he chose to remain silent while the doctor injected him with the anesthetic and began to sew the cut, musing on how to punish the monster sitting in the living room.

"The stab wound was not very deep. What happened?" Shinra asked once he was done, surprised that Izaya had gotten stabbed to begin with.

"Ah, you see, I ran into Shizu-cha―"

"So it was him!" Shinra hissed and grabbed him by the arm, his mind set on finding out the truth even if he had to beat it out of him.

"No, it wa―"

"Why are you protecting him?"

"I'm not!" Izaya snapped, red eyes staring into Shinra's furious ones. "I hate him so much that I can barely restrain myself from going out there and slitting his throat!"

Shinra just glared at him, unable to comprehend why the man would ever want to be anywhere near that monster. "Why did you bring him here and asked me to treat him after what he did to you?"

"He can't die until I'm fully satisfied," Izaya said in a hollow voice while staring into nothingness.

"You'll never be satisfied!" Shinra snapped, the fury burning through his veins almost making him tremble.

"Perhaps, but I can't stop, because he is anathema to me," Izaya answered honestly.

"Please don't go anywhere near him again," Shinra pleaded as he put a hand on the man's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "I don't want you to get hurt again, I can't... I don't want to see that again."

Izaya clenched his fists into the sheets and lowered his head, the idea of the doctor seeing him the way he was back then and having to treat him making him drown in shame. "I shouldn't have told Kasuka your name that night," he said in a quivering voice. "I shouldn't have gotten you involved―"

"Stop with the nonsense!" Shinra growled in an uncharacteristic way, pissed off that Izaya was so dumb to believe that he would rather see him dead than to take care of his injuries. He had to find a way to make the idiot realize once and for all that he somewhat cared about him. He grabbed the man's jaw and forced his head up until their eyes met. "I'm angry because you're allowing him to get close to you. Don't you understand how dangerous he is?"

"I understand," Izaya said and tried to tear himself away from the fingers capturing his jaw, the doctor's worried expression making him feel guiltier than he already felt for bringing the beast there.

"No, you don't, because if you did, you wouldn't go anywhere near him," Shinra said thickly and scrubbed a hand over his face after taking off his glasses, the beginning of a headache creeping up on him. "Do you know the sight I was greeted with when I entered the bathroom that night?"

Izaya laughed brokenly and closed his legs on instinct, the memory of that horrible pain making a shiver run down his spine. "I have a pretty good idea," he finally answered as he dimly stared at his thighs, his vision hazed by the memory of the blood he could almost see running down.

"The water was crimson, that's how much blood you lost. That... that monster, that animal ripped you apart. Had I arrived twenty minutes later, you would've been dead right now. Please, please stay away from him," Shinra pleaded, his voice thick with emotion. "What if he loses it and attacks you again?"

"Shizu-chan said that he will never hurt me agai―"

"Snap out of it already!" he said and grabbed the idiot by the arms. He tightened his hold on the too skinny limbs and shook him a few times, hoping that Izaya would wake up and see the danger he was in. "He can't be trusted! Do you really want to risk your safety just for revenge? It's not worth it, not if you're dead, because the next time he loses it, he will kill you. He might even fuck you to death, is that what you want?!"

Izaya whined pathetically and shook his head. "He said that he wouldn't do it again, and earlier today, he saved―"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Shinra snapped and buried his right hand into the black locks of his idiot patient. "Look at me!" he ordered and forced Izaya's head up again, not letting go even when the man tried to weakly push away his hand. "I don't care what he says, he will relapse, and then he will rape you again, and maybe next time I won't get to you in time. Is that what you want??"

"I know that he can't be trusted," Izaya said, his body going limp in Shinra's hold.

"Then why?" Shinra asked and released him, exasperated by the man's stubbornness.

Izaya's body shook with incessant tremors, so he raised his legs and hugged his knees, curling into a ball on the hospital bed. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to find his voice. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, so to say them out loud in a way that would make sense seemed like an impossible task. He perfectly understood where Shinra was coming from, but at the same time he couldn't stop wanting to damage Shizuo until the beast was just as broken as he was. He knew that he could get attacked any time he was anywhere near that animal, but judging by the few times he had ran into Shizuo, it looked like the stupid monster was finally learning to control his rage at least to some degree. Just knowing that the protozoan regretted his actions made him feel better because he didn't want to think how it would've been if Shizuo didn't feel any remorse towards what he had done to him.

"Hey," Shinra said softly and sat next to him on the bed, "are you all right?"

"C-Cold," said Izaya in a trembling voice.

Shinra used the opportunity to wrap an arm around Izaya's back and pull him into a hug, the man's surprised gasp followed by weak resistance making him chuckle softly.

"W-What a-are you d-doing?" Izaya stuttered.

"Warming you up."

Izaya stood stock still for a few moments, trying to decide whether he wanted to pull away or to snuggle in closer. He wasn't one for hugging or for sickly sweet signs of affection, but he was so cold that his teeth were chattering so he gave in and moved closer, a satisfied sigh slipping past his lips once he started warming up.

"If you tell Celty about any of this, I'm going to kill you and then dissect you," Shinra warned, feeling slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing.

Izaya snickered at first, but then he almost purred like a cat when Shinra started running his hand up and down his back, the man's touch no longer bothering him like it did in the past. The doctor had most likely gauged his reactions to see how far he could go, and Izaya was grateful for that because at no point did he feel threatened by anything the other was doing.

"I simply can't stay mad at you," Shinra confessed, amusement clear in his voice. "Do you think he left?" he asked in a more serious tone.

"No, because Shizu-chan wants to―" he started but he never got to finish because Shinra's phone beeped and the man fished it out from the pocket of his coat to answer the message.

"It's Celty," Shinra answered the unspoken question before he set the phone on the bed and proceeded to gently run his fingers through Izaya's hair.

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that both you and Shizuo are here, and that I'd appreciate it if she could treat his wounds because I'm busy taking care of you."

Izaya chuckled and tightened his hold around Shinra's torso, his teeth finally ceasing their incessant chattering.

"I'm going to let it go for now, but I expect answers soon," Shinra warned and he felt Izaya tense in his arms before the man nodded weakly. He didn't like the idea of Celty being anywhere near that animal, but he didn't like how depressed she appeared to be lately and hoped that helping Shizuo would make her feel better, if only a little.

* * *

Celty almost dropped her PDA when she read the message, shocked that Shinra would let Shizuo into their home. She immediately jumped on her bike and drove to the apartment in record time, not even caring about the fearsome police officer trying to get her to stop for running a red light at some point. She looked around to make sure that she had lost the man and then she rushed to the elevator. It was only after she found herself inside the apartment and made those last few steps towards the living room that she realized how terrified she was about the whole thing. She wasn't scared of him in the traditional sense of the word, but she dreaded their encounter nonetheless, because the Shizuo sitting dejectedly on the coffee table in her living room was not the same person she once knew. The man before her had sexually assaulted another person, and even if said person happened to be Orihara Izaya, it was still wrong. It didn't look like he had noticed her presence, so when she sat down on the couch in front of him he jerked in surprise, his startled expression quickly morphing into one of shame.

"Celty, I..." he said in a tormented voice, but didn't find the strength to continue.

[Shinra told me to take a look at your wounds,] she typed on her PDA and showed him the message before she got up and went to retrieve the emergency medical kit they kept in the bathroom. She didn't like the idea of treating Shizuo herself because she didn't have any confidence in her skills, but she had seen Shinra at work before and she hoped that she would manage.

"You don't have to do this," Shizuo said when she came back.

Celty's posture turned rigid and she needed a few moments to clear her absent head before she found the strength to type her reply. [I'm not going to let you die.]

Shizuo cringed at the memory of her struggling to pull the switchblade away from his chest back when he had attempted to end his own life and he felt remorse for scaring her like that. "Thank you," he said, grateful to her for not allowing him to die while still thinking that Kasuka had been irreparably damaged because of him.

[Where are you injured?]

"Back, three stab wounds," he said and proceeded to take off his jacket and T-shirt while Celty got things ready. He wanted nothing more than to get up and run out of the apartment, but regardless of how much shame he felt, he would grit his teeth and endure Izaya's punishment because it was the least he could do after everything that had happened between them.

[Did Izaya do this?] Celty asked just before she grabbed some gauze to clean the wounds.

"Yeah, but it was a misunderstanding. We didn't really fight, if that's what you're thinking," he answered after about a minute of awkward silence, and then noticed how her hand had stilled for a moment before she put the bloody gauze away, picked up the needle, and started sewing his wounds.

Celty couldn't be sure if what she was doing was right, but no matter how much she wanted to stomp into the lab, drag Shinra out of there and force him to take over, she couldn't do that to the man she loved. When she had told him to make friends back when he was still in school, she never imagined that he would pick someone as terrible as Izaya, but somehow, the two of them became close and now she knew that Shinra would even go as far as to murder Shizuo for Izaya if given the opportunity. She hated the current situation, especially the knowledge of what her friend had done to the Informant, and when her mind unwillingly envisioned it, she shook her helmet so hard that it dropped to the floor with a clank.

Startled, Shizuo jumped to his feet and turned around, a grunt slipping past his lips when the thread pulled at his skin before it tore away.

Celty immediately put the needle down and picked up her PDA. [I'm sorry!]

"Don't worry about it," he said and went to pick up her helmet while she prepared another needle and thread. "I'm the one who's sorry," he continued after he came back and sat down, still holding onto her helmet. "I ruined everything, haven't I? Don't answer, just hear me out please. First of all, I want to thank you for being a good friend to me all these years. Your calming presence stopped me many times from breaking bones or twisting necks, and for that I'm grateful. You're more human than most people I know, hell, you're more human than I am, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise," he said and held onto her helmet for a few moments longer before setting it down on the coffee table. "I didn't want you to have to do this, but this is another one of Izaya's punishments, to have me see just how much my friends hate me, so I had no choice but to stay here and wait for you."

Celty felt as though an invisible fist had grabbed her heart and was squeezing it without mercy, Shizuos' grief having seeped into his voice as he conveyed his feelings and thoughts. She still couldn't understand how he could jump from beating up people to rape, but at the same time it didn't seem too far fetched if it involved Izaya since the Informant had this talent of bringing out the worst in Shizuo. She took one look at her 'work of art' and set the needle down before she walked past him and sat down on the couch in front of him. [I don't hate you,] she told him and watched as his eyes seemed to get some of their life back, [but I'm disappointed in you,] she continued, even though she knew that her words would hurt him. She had always been honest with him and she had no intention of ever changing that about her.

"I'm sorry," Shizuo said and lowered his head, dyed locks hiding his eyes from view.

It broke her heart to see him like that because she still cared about him, but she wanted to speak her mind so she typed something again and pushed the PDA into his face until he read the message. [There's no excuse for what you've done.]

He simply nodded, the light blurriness in his eyes telling him that her words hurt him more than he wanted to admit.

[I had to clean Izaya's blood off his bathroom floor and tub, and that's not something I wish to ever do again.]

[And Shinra... can you imagine what it must've been like for him to see his best friend like that? I shudder just thinking about it.]

Shizuo felt his heart getting ripped to shreds by her words and he rapidly blinked his eyes in an attempt to get rid of the tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes.

[However, there is also no excuse for what Izaya did to you.]

Shizuo actually jerked in surprise at that. He had to read the message twice to make sure that he got it right.

[He tried to get you killed before, and unlike you, he still hasn't shown any remorse for what he's done.]

"He doesn't have to, because he's already paid for it. That's why I did it. In my crazed state, I thought that by doing... that... to him, we would be even," he said, nearly choking on the words.

[Oh...] was Celty's only reply, because she hadn't thought about it that way.

"Thank you again for everything. I don't expect forgiveness from anyone, and if I could go back and undo what I've done, I would do it in a heartbeat, but that's impossible, so all I can do now is live with what I've do―"

"Is Shizu-chan as good as new again?" Izaya asked in a singsong voice and slowly made his way towards the coffee table where he sat down on the opposite side from where the beast was sitting. Gathering his courage, he leaned against Shizuo's back, struggling to fight off the nausea as their naked skins touched, the beast tensing and the surprised noise escaping his lips bringing him enough satisfaction to momentarily distract him from the torture he threw himself into.

"What are you doing?!" Shinra nearly screeched, horrified and shocked by the man's insane behavior. He immediately grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him up, but Izaya only leaned harder into Shizuo, hoping to inflict some pain on the beast.

"This is doctor brutality!" he cried out in protest and tried to free his wrist from the iron grip. "It's fine, Shizu-chan won't hurt me, right, Shizu-chan?" he asked, his lips quirking upwards into a smirk when the brute made a sound of assent. "Anyway, would you prefer it if I stained your couch with blood?" he asked, pouting, hoping that the doctor would back off because he was having too much fun pressing his elbow into the brute's injured back.

"YES! I would prefer you did that!" Shinra quickly answered and pulled Izaya so hard that the man ended up crashing into his arms, a surprised yelp followed by a pained grunt spilling past both their lips.

Shizuo sprang to his feet and took a step around the table to go help them, but it didn't look like either of them needed help, so instead he stopped and just stood there watching.

Izaya tried to push himself away, but Shinra caught him and pulled him back. "Aren't you being a little overprotective?" he asked, his voice betraying some of the annoyance he felt.

"One can never be too overprotective when it comes to someone as foolish as you," Shinra answered in a calm voice as he pushed Izaya behind him, now standing between Shizuo and his idiot patient.

"I'm going home," said Shizuo and turned around, only to stop in his tracks when he heard Izaya's next words.

"Who would've thought that all it took for the two of us to be able to stand in the same room without actively trying to kill each other was for Shizu-chan to almost fuck me to death?" he chirped, thoroughly enjoying the way in which the beast's shoulders sagged after hearing the truth.

Shinra felt all the color drain from his face and for a moment he feared that his knees might buckle and that he'd fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He'd done everything in his power to keep the truth a secret from Celty, and yet the ungrateful bastard behind him had crushed all of his efforts with only a few words.

Izaya didn't even have time to react when Shinra turned around and wrapped both hands around his neck, seriously trying to squeeze the life out of him. He tried to push him away but there was no use, not with the injuries and the blood loss he'd suffered that day.

"How dare you hurt my Celty after everything I've done for you?" he hissed, only waking up from his murderous frenzy when Shizuo and Celty grabbed his arms and pried him away from Izaya. "Let go!" he demanded, and then went limp in their hold when he read the text on Celty's PDA.

[I've known for a while.]

"How did you find out?" he asked, his usual cheerful voice now laced with grief.

Izaya coughed a few times, struggling to breath, the man's strength having taken him by surprise. "I told her," he said and nearly recoiled at the angry glare sent his way.

"I see. You can let go now," Shinra said in a surprisingly calm voice, "I won't attack him anymore," he then added and went to his lab to retrieve Izaya's T-shirt and coat. He quickly made his way back to the living room and threw the bloody clothes in Izaya's direction. "Get out of my house," he said in the coldest tone he could muster before he turned to Shizuo and gave him the same message. "You too. Now."

Both Shizuo and Izaya picked up their clothes and silently made their way out of the apartment, the violent way in which Shinra closed the door making them wince.

"You shouldn't have told her just because you wanted to hurt me," Shizuo said and lit up a cigarette, his deprived lungs screaming for a smoke.

"I didn't," Izaya said in a flat tone and proceeded to put on his clothes.

Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion.

Izaya sighed and started walking away, Shizuo following closely behind him. "She cornered me in the stairwell, so I had no choice but to tell her. Does your stupid protozoic brain really think that I enjoy telling people how you almost fucked me to death?"

The flea's question took him so badly by surprise that Shizuo choked on the smoke. He stopped in his tracks and coughed a few times, at the same time realizing that it was best if Izaya went ahead.

"Well?" Izaya asked as he turned around, eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"I'll take the stairs," said Shizuo and took another drag from the cigarette.

Izaya shrugged. "Suit yourself. Ah, but before I go, you can have this back," he said and threw him the switchblade, Shizuo barely succeeding in catching it.

"Huh?"

"I wouldn't want to take away such an important trophy," Izaya sneered and threw him a disgusted look. "Consider it your reward for helping me today."

"It's n-not a trophy," Shizuo stuttered, embarrassed at having been caught carrying the weapon around.

Izaya sniggered, eyes sparkling in malevolence. "Then what is it, hmm?"

"A reminder..."

"Of how much you enjoyed fucking me into the ground?"

"No!" Shizuo rushed to answer. "Of the biggest mistake I've done in my entire life."

"You might be able to fool Celty, or maybe even Shinra one day, but you will never fool me. I was there, so I know the real Heiwajima Shizuo. You might be sorry for what you've done, but I remember your grunts of pleasure and your painful thrusts, as well as your demeaning words, because that's what you wanted, no? You wanted to engrave every single one of them into my body and into my mind so that I'll never forget," he said and pointed to his head.

Shizuo could barely breathe, let alone say anything, so instead he just stood there, watching the man he had tried to break.

"Congratulations, Shizu-chan, you succeeded, because I'll never forget," Izaya revealed before he turned around and started walking away. "I'll see you around," he then added as a promise of the pain that was to come and smiled bitterly when he heard Shizuo's fist slam into the wall because that was the only thing he could do. We'll definitely meet again and again, until you're just as broken as I am.

Chapter 32: Porcelain Heart

They both stood there and awkwardly stared at each other for a few long moments, the stifling silence slowly starting to turn unbearable. Shinra knew that he was supposed to say something but he had no idea what Celty wanted to hear. He sighed loudly and forced his legs to move, immediately noticing the way she tensed as he approached her. He saw her raise the PDA to type something, but he gently grabbed her hand and stopped her. He couldn't read her expression because she didn't have her head, but everything about her posture told him that she was confused. "Whatever you want to say, it can wait," he told her just before he pulled her into a tight hug.

She hugged him back just as tightly, something she hadn't done since the day she had cornered Izaya and forced him to reveal the truth. She hadn't been able to comfort Shinra before because she didn't want him to know that she was aware of what had transpired between their two friends, but now that he knew, she hoped that she could somehow help him. She felt a bit guilty for what he was going through because she had been the one who insisted he made connections with other people, but she never imagined that he'd pick Izaya. As terrible as the Informant was, even she felt some pity towards the man now that she knew what Shizuo had done to him.

As much as he liked to believe otherwise, Orihara Izaya was only a man, and even though Shizuo was not exactly a monster, he was pretty close to one, at least in terms of physical strength, so it was only natural for the Informant to lose if he ever got caught. Celty was certain that it happened the night when Shinra had gotten a strange phone call and went to Izaya's place because he kept avoiding her questions whenever she inquired about the Informant's health. The bruises on the man's jaw, as well as the ones encompassing his neck, hadn't made much sense back then, but now she finally understood why they were nothing like the injuries one would get after a regular fistfight.

"Let's go to the bedroom," Shinra suggested, feeling completely exhausted after the day's events. He sensed her stiffen in his arms and he sighed, feeling a bit hurt that she would think him capable of flirting with her in such a situation. "Do you have such a low opinion of me? I'm really tired, and honestly, at this point, I just want to hold you. I know you want it too," he then added in a completely serious tone.

If she had a head, Celty would've nodded, but she didn't, so all she could do was tighten her hold around his torso and hope that he understood her answer that was both an apology and a concession. She hated herself for only allowing him to be close to her when she sought comfort, but both people and monsters didn't change over night and her bad habit of kicking him away every time he got close had been deeply ingrained into her very being. He released her and led her to the bedroom, and even though Celty knew that it wouldn't be for long, she still missed the warmth of his body.

Shinra kicked his shoes off and barely stopped himself from slumping onto the bed. Instead, he sat down and leaned his back against the headboard before he patted the spot in front of him for Celty to lie on. He smiled a bit when she crawled into his arms, but his joy felt bitter because of the circumstances which had led to it. "They're both the biggest idiots in the whole wide world.

Celty felt her heart shatter into a million pieces, his voice sounding more sorrowful than she ever remembered hearing it before.

"Just because I hate Shizuo for what he did, it doesn't mean that I don't understand how it is to lose yourself to your anger. Izaya has this accursed talent of making people want to wring his neck, or to at least wipe that condescending smirk off his face, but you know, that's still no excuse for what he did."

She shifted a bit and typed on her PDA before showing it to Shinra. [I still find it hard to believe that he'd do something like that.]

"I understand how you feel. I don't think that I would've believed Izaya even if he told me himself, but the sample I took from him belonged to Shizuo. There's no denying that Izaya is a lying piece of shit sometimes, and quite the monster himself, but Shizuo took it too far. I don't know what Izaya did to piss him off, but Shizuo should've known better. He really should've known better..." said Shinra, his voice trembling towards the end.

[I know that he did it,] she said, and then twisted and turned until she was resting with her back against his chest. It was easier for her to type like that and also for him to read. [He seemed really broken up about it.]

Shinra hadn't meant to, but he sneered. He could only hope that Celty wasn't offended by it because his sneer wasn't directed at her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

[It's okay, don't worry about it.]

Shinra shook his head, feeling completely disgusted by Izaya's actions. "It doesn't matter anymore; I'm done with both of them. I have no issues with Izaya taking revenge on Shizuo because the monster deserves it, but to get you involved... that's an entirely different matter altogether. I can't forgive him, not this time. After everything I've done for him, to get betrayed like that... you could say that my friendship with him ended the moment he dared to hurt you."

[He didn't hurt me,] Celty rushed to assure him, feeling a bit guilty for destroying their friendship. She didn't like that the two of them were friends, but she couldn't deny that it helped Shinra to become more human even if his friend happened to be a manipulative bastard.

Shinra grit his teeth harder, his anger towards Izaya burning hotter than ever. "He hurt you, I am certain, because I know you."

[No, you don't understand.]

"I understand perfectly," Shinra snorted, his grey eyes glaring daggers at the PDA as though it was responsible for his beloved's suffering.

[I didn't give him a choice,] she confessed.

Shinra's brows furrowed in confusion and he stared at the PDA, his mind trying to process the words written on the screen. "What do you mean?"

[That day we fought, I cornered Izaya in the stairwell and forced him to tell me the truth.]

He sneered again, now even more pissed off than before. "No one can force Izaya to do anything."

[I wouldn't be so sure about that.]

"It's not like you beat the truth out of him... or did you?" he asked, slightly concerned.

[No, but I was a bit rough on him and I refused to let him go until he told me the truth.]

Shinra didn't know what to say to that, so he remained silent and allowed her to continue.

[I don't like him,] she said, wanting to get it out of her system before she continued. She didn't want the two of them to never talk to each other again because of her, no matter how much she despised the man.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lowered his chin in the crook of her neck. "I know that."

She shivered a bit at the intimate contact but continued to type. [Then you also know that I would never take his side unless he was really innocent.]

He nodded and waited for her to continue.

[He warned me that I would get hurt, and he gave me many chances to walk away,] she admitted and then took a small pause before typing again, [but I kept pressuring him into telling me what happened.]

Shinra was still mad at Izaya, but at the same time it sounded like the man had no choice but to tell her everything. There had been times when his friend seemed genuinely scared of him and he hated that because Izaya wasn't supposed to ever be scared of anyone. "Perhaps I shouldn't have snapped at him like that," he reluctantly admitted even though he was still pissed about the whole situation.

[And I shouldn't have forced him to reveal something that he would've preferred to keep a secret.]

"I shouldn't have hidden the truth from you, but I didn't want to invade Izaya's privacy and I also didn't want to see you hurt. I know that Shizuo is your best friend," he said and he felt her stiffen in his embrace.

Celty's fingers hovered timidly above the keyboard for a few moments while trying to gather the courage to tell him how she felt about him. [You're my best friend.]

"Only that?" he asked in a voice that sounded almost foreign to him. He'd never allowed so much bitterness to seep into his tone before.

[No...]

"Then what? Don't tell me that I'm like a little brother to you. That would truly crush my heart." He expected to get hit or for her to at least get up, walk out, and then slam the door behind her, but what he didn't expect was for Celty to turn around and to nestle into his arms, her unexpected behavior leaving him so stumped that he had no idea how to react.

Celty slowly raised her hand with the intention to touch his face, and even though he jerked in surprise, she didn't pull back and instead proceeded to caress his cheek.

He kept hoping that one day Celty would be his, but after so long, he was beginning to have doubts, doubts which obviously turned out to be false because there she was, nestled into his arms, being all affectionate and loving. He gently captured her wrist, pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I don't care if death is the price for my audacity," he said and planted a kiss on her neck. He almost flinched when she started to squirm around, but no bodily harm came to him for his daring actions and if that wasn't a sign that she was all right with it, then he didn't know what was. He loved everything about her, especially her scent, because she smelled fresh, unlike the human smell of death and decay.

If perfection had a name, Shinra knew that its name would be Celty. He smirked against her skin when the black smoke started to retract wherever his lips touched and he dared to turn her around a bit and to go lower and lower towards her breast, the way she seemed to arch into his touch making him think that she was really enjoying it. "I love you," he said and then raised his head and crushed her into a hug, because no matter how much he wanted her, he didn't wish to take advantage of her when she was feeling depressed about her friend.

The moment he stopped was like she had been woken up from a dream and she immediately used her shadowy smoke to cover her shoulders and neck, suddenly feeling extremely ashamed by the way in which her body ended up reacting to his ministrations. She tried to pull away because she felt the need to hide from him, but he chuckled darkly and only tightened his hold around her back and waist. "Running is no longer an option," he said in a low voice that almost sounded like a purr.

The passionate words made her shiver and somehow she felt hotter than she could ever remember feeling. Celty had known for a very long time that Shinra desired her, so she didn't need Izaya to tell her that, but his words did serve as a wake-up call. As much as she disliked the man, she was a bit grateful to him for opening her metaphorical eyes. It had been her conscious choice to not let anyone get close to her because as long as she didn't have her head, she feared that she could die at any moment. It upset her greatly that she was not in control of her own life, but she was slowly starting to realize that by denying her own desires, she was denying herself the right to live. Shinra knew that he could lose her at any moment and yet he was still willing to follow his heart and to allow himself to love her. If he could do it, then so could she.

Even if her head were to be kept safe and she could go on living for a very long time, Shinra didn't have the same luxury because his human life was bound to end at some point. It had to be terrifying for humans to live knowing that only death awaited them, to know that one day they would lose everything, be it the fortune they had acquired during their lifetime or the people they loved or who loved them back. Death was only a possibility in her case, not a certainty, and if she felt that way, she could only imagine how much harder it had to be for Shinra to know that one day he would cease to exist. They both wanted and needed each other, and for the first time since she had woken up without her memories, she had no problem in returning his feelings. At least she finally knew that she loved him back. It was only because it was Shinra that she would even consider such a possibility, and she shuddered at the thought of doing something intimate with anyone else. Both Shizuo and Izaya came to mind then and she tore herself from his arms and rushed to the door.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked in a trembling voice, hoping that he hadn't scared her or anything like that. After getting a taste of her, he doubted that he could ever go back to not being able to touch her the way he truly wanted to.

[I'm going to see Shizuo,] she said and pressed the handle.

"What?" He nearly screeched and then rushed to grab her arm. "Don't go near him, please," he pleaded, hoping that she would heed his request.

She turned around and caressed his cheek once more with her free hand. [Nothing bad will happen to me, I promise.]

"Please don't go," he tried again.

[I'll be back soon, I promise.]

Shinra reluctantly released her arm, a maelstrom of emotions leaving him unable to think. He had no doubts that she'd be safe, but he still worried about her.

[He won't hurt me,] she said and then rushed out of the apartment.

The weather was dark and gloomy as she stepped outside and it felt somewhat fitting of such a depressing day. She got on her motorcycle and petted her beloved Shooter, the affectionate gesture always making her feel a bit better because her horse-turned-bike was the only companion she had from before she lost her head and her memories along with it. She didn't rush to her destination, dreading the conversation that awaited her. She could almost understand why people sometimes felt jealous when they saw other people being happy, because now, more than ever, she wished to be as carefree as some of the humans she passed by on her way to Shizuo's apartment. Hers and Shinra's universe had been turned upside down by their friends, but the world didn't seem to know or care. Izaya had interrupted her discussion with Shizuo, but she still wanted to finish it, now more than ever after realizing what a blasphemous thing it was to use sex in such a way.

She spent the rest of the way there thinking about what to tell him, and by the time she reached the apartment, it was starting to get dark outside. It was still pretty early though, early enough for him to still be awake, so she raised her hand and knocked a few times until she heard his footsteps as he approached the door.

"C-Celty?" he asked, confused at seeing her so soon after their discussion at Shinra's place. "Why are you here?"

She pulled out her PDA from inside the pocket of her jumpsuit and explained the reason for her visit. [I didn't get to finish what I had to say because Izaya interrupted us, but if you don't mind, I'd like to continue from where we left off.]

He reluctantly nodded and invited her inside. "Does Shinra know that you're here?"

[Yes, I told him before I left.]

He flinched just thinking how pissed the doctor must've been when she told him where she was going, but he pushed that thought aside and sat down on the couch, his mind set on listening to what she had to say, whether it would tear him apart or bring him sweet relief.

She sat down next to him, not at all worried that he would hurt her in any way because she was still a monster and Shinra's worries were unfounded.

"Whatever it is that you have to say, say it, and then go back to Shinra; the sooner the better."

She felt pity for him, and even though she was shocked by what he'd done to Izaya, she still held the hope that he was not a completely terrible person. [You must be hurting so badly right now,] she said and then continued when he gave her a grunt of assent, [but no matter what Izaya did to you that day, you shouldn't have taken it out on him like that.]

"Nothing..." he said in an apathetic voice.

[?]

"He didn't do anything," he admitted, his blank expression hiding the torment he felt within.

[I'm not sure that I understand what you mean...]

His mask fell off and his features twisted in pain, his heart aching as the memories of that day flooded his mind. "He didn't do anything at all."

Celty watched him in disbelief for a few moments before she finally found the strength to move, her fingers quivering badly as she slowly typed her question. [Is that true, or are you trying to make yourself into the villain for Izaya's sake?] Shizuo's broken laughter sent a shiver down her spine, and when she looked into his eyes, she could swear that she saw a bit of madness in there, something that she couldn't remember ever seeing before.

"I wish that he would've done something, because then I'd at least have an excuse," he said, the corners of his lips turning upwards into a maniacal smirk, "but the flea was innocent this time around, and his only sin was that he refused to apologize to me for all the shit he's done over the years."

[You told me that when you drown in rage, you sometimes lose yourself to the point that you are no longer aware of your actions.]

Shizuo nodded, the insane smirk still not leaving him.

[Is that what happened with Izaya?] she asked, and she almost shrank back when his expression turned wild, as though he was starting to lose his mind.

"Oh, no, I remember everything, because I wanted to break the flea. I wanted to ruin him and I wanted to destroy him, because I'm nothing more than a monster and that's what monsters do, right?"

Her heart sank, finally starting to understand his behavior. [You can't chase me away like this. You can act evil all you want, but it will be my choice whether I walk away from you or stay by your side,] she said and then saw how his crazed expression fell and was replaced by a tormented one.

Despite how horrible he felt, he still smiled a bit. "I've never been very good at lying."

[You're a terrible liar,] Celty conceded.

"But you're wrong this time around," he said, his smile turning into a frown. "Everything I've said is true. Izaya really didn't do anything to provoke me that evening, and even though I gave him a chance to walk away, I still shouldn't have done that to him just because he refused to apologize. I enjoyed it, Celty, I really did, because for once, that fucked up flea was at my mercy and the feeling was exhilarating. I hurt him badly because I wanted him to remember what it meant to mess with Ikebukuro's beast, to the point that he'd regret ever crossing paths with me."

He then grabbed the cigarette pack and the lighter from the coffee table with trembling hands and lit one up, once again falling prey to his bad habit of smoking when he was either angry or nervous. And he was nervous, because he knew that his words would chase Celty away, but it was only fitting for him to lose everything after inflicting so much emotional damage on the flea. "I succeeded; he will never forget. He always thought that I was a monster, and instead of showing him otherwise, I proved him right. I'm nothing more than a stupid beast and I deserve nothing less than death for my sins. He won't let me die though, not yet, not until I break too, I know that now," he said and then suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to him. He leaned towards her, the way her smoke was spilling from underneath her helmet telling him that she was either angry, nervous, or perhaps both. "Do you really think it's safe to be around me?"

Celty tried to pull her hand away to answer his question, but he didn't let go, so she had to type from a rather awkward position. [You don't scare me.]

"But you should be afraid of me," he said and kept tightening his grip until he saw that he was causing her pain. It was only then that he released her wrist and hoped that she would finally leave and never come back. He took a drag from the cigarette and smirked, inwardly trying to convince himself that he felt no regret for his actions. He was a monster and monsters weren't supposed to feel regret, or at least that's what he remembered Izaya telling him before. "I knew it right then, as I was thrusting into his broken, bleeding body, that I was a monster. Even you have to admit, Celty, that no normal person would enjoy that, but I did. It felt so good to humiliate that fucked up flea, and even though a part of me regrets it, the monster in me rejoices at the victory."

[You're despicable!] she finally snapped, feeling completely sickened by his words.

"Yes, I am," he admitted and took another drag from the cigarette.

Celty was so upset that she couldn't even sit down anymore, so she sprang to her feet and furiously typed on the PDA, almost dropping the device in the process. [Sex is supposed to be something intimate between two people who love each other, not a weapon to terrorize and debase another person!]

"There are people, and then there are animals. Guess which one am I? You were wrong about me. I'm not the person you thought I was. You almost made me believe that I was human, but now I know better," he said and crushed the cigarette butt into the ashtray before getting up as well. "You see, you and I are opposites. I'm a human who's really a monster, and you're a monster who's more human than most people I know, so run along, little Dullahan, go back to Shinra before you end up getting hurt by a real monster." He stopped her when she raised her PDA to write some more by grabbing her by the arm and dragging her out of his apartment before he slammed the door into her non-existent face.

He laughed brokenly as he sat down on the couch, his eyes filling with tears at the realization that he had just chased away his friend. He didn't deserve to have anyone by his side and she certainly didn't deserve to get involved into Izaya's games, so it was best if both she and Shinra kept their distance from him. He was the only one who was supposed to break and he didn't want to drag them down with him. He knew that he had damaged Izaya, but it wasn't until their discussion outside of Shinra's apartment that he realized just how much he had broken the flea. He could feel the tears starting to run down his cheeks but he no longer cared because no one was there to see him, and even though he was a monster, even monsters were allowed to cry once in a while.

He stayed there for a while, chain-smoking the remaining cigarettes until he was certain that Celty was gone. Only then did he get up, got dressed and left the apartment, his mind set on getting drunk. It felt as though he could no longer go on if his mind didn't get some rest from the torment he was constantly feeling. For the first time in over two months, he wanted to forget about everyone and everything, if only for a few hours.

Notes:

Blind Fury COMIC on tumblr or deviantArt.

Chapter 33: Sing for Absolution

It was around two in the morning when Tom was woken up from his sleep by the sound of his phone going off. He groaned as he stretched his arm to find it, failing a couple of times before finally grasping the device and scrubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to wake up enough to understand what the person on the other end was saying. "Who are you?" he finally said when he realized that it wasn't Shizuo's voice.

"No one important, but I'd appreciate it if you could come pick up your drunk employee from my bar," the man said in a slightly exasperated tone.

"Shizuo?" he asked, brows furrowed in confusion because his friend wasn't much of a drinker as far as he knew.

"Yes, Heiwajima Shizuo, he's about to pass out at the counter and there are a few dangerous-looking individuals who've been watching him for a while now."

Tom immediately jumped to his feet and rushed to pick up his clothes. "Are you one of his friends?"

"No, but I've seen the two of you around a couple of times and that's why I know your names. I would appreciate it if you could hurry since it looks like things might escalate soon. The bar's name is Zon. I assume you know where it is."

"I'll be right there," Tom said and ended the call. He fumbled around in the darkness for a while, trying to find his clothes, until he finally remembered to turn on the lamp on the nightstand, the blinding light making him raise his arm to shield his bleary eyes from it. It hurt to even open them, but he knew that he couldn't waste any more time so he rushed to his discarded clothes―the ones he didn't have time to properly hang or fold before he went to sleep―and proceeded to put them on. He then picked up his phone, keys and called a taxi, wanting to get there as soon as possible.

He knew better than anyone how many enemies Shizuo had made over this years, which was one of the reasons he had advised him to never get drunk in public. It was like asking to get mugged or worse, killed. "Step on it," he told the taxi driver the moment he sat on the back seat, handing him a hefty sum of money to make sure that the man would heed his request. He was usually a very patient man, but for once, he was tempted to throw the other out of the car and drive there himself because no matter how fast they were going, he still couldn't be sure that he would get there in time. He also couldn't help but wonder what was going on with Shizuo. No matter how he looked at it, his friend seemed to have greatly changed during the span of only a few months.

Thinking back, he now remembered the exact day when something in Shizuo had changed. He was certain that whatever it was, it must've happened the day before Shizuo showed up at work wearing normal clothes. Prior to their day off, Shizuo was his usual self when they parted ways, but then, not even two days later, he seemed like a completely different person. He blankly stared at the city lights, trying to recall anything that would help him figure out what was going on with his friend, but unfortunately, he came up empty.

By the time the car stopped in front of the bar, he still had no idea what was wrong with Shizuo. He thanked the driver, got out of the car and strode inside the establishment, his eyes roaming all over the place until he spotted Shizuo gulping down another glass of alcohol. Instead of rushing in, he searched the crowd for anyone who was observing his friend, immediately spotting two potential threats. Both men were sitting at the same table, far away from the door, the hate they held towards Shizuo evident in their eyes. One of them kept playing with what Tom assumed was a knife inside the pocket of his jacket, a clear indication of how dangerous that person was.

"Tanaka-san," he heard someone say.

"You're the one I talked to earlier?"

The man nodded and handed him Shizuo's phone, still marveling at how the device even worked considering how crushed it appeared to be, a few pieces of plastic having already fallen off.

"Thank you." Tom pocketed the phone and then turned towards the men who were obviously after Shizuo's life. "Are there more besides those two?"

"If there are, I haven't spotted them."

Tom fished his wallet from the pocket of his pants and pulled out a few bills. "Thank you for your help."

"I didn't do it hoping to get some reward."

"Then why did you do it?" Tom asked the younger man, now slightly curious about why he would help Shizuo if the two of them weren't friends.

"Because Heiwajima-san is a good person who would help a complete stranger at the risk of his own life," he said and then continued when the man he knew as Tanaka Tom seemed genuinely curious about it. "About half a year ago, when I was going home from work, I was mugged by two men. One of them had a knife, but Heiwajima-san, who just happened to pass by right at that moment, saw someone in danger and acted with no regard to his safety. I owe him my life and I wanted to repay him somehow."

"Shizuo hates violence," Tom said with a small smile on his face.

The bartender sniggered. "I'm sure he does. I have to go back to work now, so if you'll excuse me..."

"Wait!"

"Yes?"

"Can you provide us with a distraction so that I can safely get him out of here?"

The man smiled. "No problem."

Tom thanked him again and they shook hands, waiting for the aforementioned distraction to happen so that he could extract Shizuo from inside the bar. The younger man pretended to accidentally trip and spill a few glasses of alcohol on the two stalkers, his acting skills worthy of applause. He made a mental note to come back and properly thank him for his help. Focusing on his task, he approached Shizuo as inconspicuously as possible and grabbed him by the arm while the two stalkers were busy raging at the bartender. "Shizuo, we have to go, now," he told him, but it didn't look like his friend was listening to him because instead of getting up, he poured himself more alcohol and then drank the whole glass in one go.

"Hic! This tsty," he heard Shizuo slur, lost in his own drunken world. Annoyed, Tom grabbed the glass and pushed it away before he pulled his friend up and half-dragged him towards the back exit.

"'mnot done," Shizuo whined and tried to wring himself from Tom's hold.

"Don't even think about it," Tom said sternly and tightened his grip to make sure that Shizuo couldn't go back. Even drunk, his friend would never use enough strength to harm him, so unless Tom willingly released him, Shizuo had no way of going back without hurting him.

"Not drnk enogh... I still rmembr," Shizuo said and then tried once again to go back, only to stop in his tracks and follow Tom out the door when the man harshly pulled him by the arm. "I neeed t' go bck," he tried again, but it didn't look like his boss was listening to him. "Pleas, I neeed to forgt."

"We'll talk about it later," he said and started dragging a very drunk Shizuo through side streets and alleyways, grateful that his friend's apartment was really close to the bar.

"Moar sakeee!" Shizuo shouted and then laughed nervously when Tom shushed him. "Gotta go," he said in an apologetic voice. "Cant hold it in 'nymore."

Tom sighed in exasperation and moved towards the nearest alley with Shizuo in tow, his eyes darting all over the place, hoping to spot any danger in case those two men decided to not give up on their prey. "Hurry up."

Shizuo’s shoulders jerked in silent laughter and he had to grab onto the wall for support as the suppressed sounds quickly turned into full-fledged laughter. "Lots o' sakeee, cant hurry."

"I told you to not get drunk like this," Tom said, feeling exasperated by the messed-up situation he found himself thrown into. "If you weren't such a good guy, you would be dead right now. It's pure luck that you happened to get drunk in a bar where the employee owed you one."

"No good."

"You know how many ene―" Tom started, but stopped when he thought he heard something.

"'m evil..."

"Shhh!!!" Tom said, irritated, and squinted his eyes in an attempt to easier spot the source of the sound. A cat suddenly sprinted from behind a bush and he couldn't help but laugh at the scene. "I really thought we were being follow―"

"You're so dead," a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun said as he too appeared from behind the same bush as the cat.

"Look, we don―"

"Not you, HIM!" the man said and pointed the gun towards Shizuo, who in the meantime zipped up his pants and turned around.

"If you kill him, the police will find you!" Tom said, hoping to dissuade the soon-to-be shooter. His eyes flickering to the gun momentarily and he realized that the situation was untenable.

"No one messes with the Dollars and gets away with it," said the man, chuckling, and then slowly approached Ikebukuro's beast. "You humiliated me in front of everyone, so just die!" he snarled and fired a shot, the bullet hitting the wall instead of Shizuo's chest.

"Wait," Tom screamed in panic, "you will go to prison if you do this!" The man didn't seem to care though. "Shizuo," he said and turned to his friend, "say something!"

Shizuo laughed and lit himself a cigarette, looking completely unconcerned. "Dun care."

Tom's eyes widened in disbelief, only now realizing just how badly Shizuo was doing because of whatever it was that had happened a few months earlier. "You can't be serious!"

"Don't care," Shizuo repeated with nary a care in the world.

The masked man laughed and approached the one he was about to murder. "I lost my girlfriend because of you, so die you bas―" he said, but never got to finish because something hit him in the head so hard that he lost consciousness.

"I knew he was trouble," said the bartender after he pocketed the Kubotan he used to knock the other man unconscious. "I needed something to defend myself after I almost got killed," he said, smiling, answering Tom's unspoken question.

Tom finally allowed himself to breathe in relief. He'd seen the man sneak behind the masked punk and he almost thought that he wouldn't make it in time, but the assailant had been too busy insulting Shizuo to pay attention to his surroundings. "Thank you, again..."

"Takaba Shin. Just call me Shin," the bartender said and pulled out his cellphone to call the police.

Tom left the man alone for a bit and went to Shizuo's side, finding his darkened gaze to be rather disturbing. "Hey, Shizuo, let's get you home."

This time, Shizuo didn't laugh or protest. Instead, he pushed himself away from the wall and started walking towards his apartment without saying a word.

"The police are on their way, so don't worry, go ahead and make sure he gets home in one piece," Shin said and waved them good-bye.

Tom nodded and followed Shizuo, wondering what was wrong with his friend. "Hey, are you ok?"

"Greaat," Shizuo slurred, still affected by the alcohol he had previously drank at the bar.

"Look, if there's any way I can help..." he said and grabbed him by the arm when he saw him totter. "I'm here for you, so let me know if you need anything."

"Nah," Shizuo said and threw away the cigarette butt.

They spent the rest of the way in silence, and when they finally reached the apartment, he dropped Shizuo on the couch and went to get him some clothes to wear for the night. He set them on the coffee table and tried to pull him up, but the man shook his head and refused to move. "You can't sleep like this," he said, but he received no answer. Sighing, he took a seat on the couch and waited for his friend to wake up, if only a bit, from his drunken state. "Okay, so what happened?" He didn't expect an immediate answer, but he jerked in surprise more than half an hour later when Shizuo finally decided to answer.

"I messed up," he said as he withdrew the cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket. "I hurt him badly. I lost it."

"Who?"

"Iza―... no, never mind," said Shizuo, immediately berating himself for almost saying too much. "Go home."

Tom stood up reluctantly and watched Shizuo in silence for a few moments. "Will you be all right?"

Shizuo nodded. "G'night," he said and watched his friend go. He waited for a few minutes and walked out the door as well, almost forgetting to close it. He begrudgingly turned back and locked it, slightly annoyed at having to do such trivial matters when he had something important to take care of.

***

It was around three forty five in the morning when Izaya got startled by the sound of someone knocking on his door, the noise stopping him from swishing in his desk chair from side to side. Clients didn't usually seek him out so late at night, so he furrowed his brows in confusion and stared at the door for a few moments, trying to figure out what was going on. He should've been asleep, but sleep was no longer something he could easily achieve or enjoy, so most mornings found him at his desk staring at the computer screen, either working or messing with other humans who were also awake.

"Izaya!" he heard the beast's voice from behind the door and he jerked in surprise, wary about Shizuo seeking him out so late at night. He inwardly cursed Tom for giving the idiot his business card and pushed himself deeper into the chair, a sense of foreboding making him reluctant to open the door. Shizuo had ripped his precious behind apart, and no matter what the brute said, he would not open that door, even though he didn't doubt that Ikebukuro's beast could easily bring it down.

"IZAYA! Open the door, I have something to tell you."

The Informant grit his teeth harder in annoyance, his hand tightening around the switchblade he kept inside the pocket of his pajamas. Most people didn't carry a weapon with them at all times, but unlike them, he was number one on Shizuo's list of most hated people.

"Open up, flea! Don't make me bring down the door," he warned, his mind set on not leaving before he got a chance to talk to Izaya.

"If you have something to say, then say it, because I won't open it," Izaya said and swiveled in his chair as a way to distract himself from the terrifying monster threatening to barge into his home, his only sanctuary not yet sullied by the beast known as Heiwajima Shizuo.

"IIIZAAAYAAAAA!"

"Shizu-chan, I advise you to leave before I call the police," Izaya warned, his measured tone belying the deep fury that seemed to make his brown-red eyes burn.

"Ok, I'll say it here. Listen, flea, I'm really sorry I raped you. I don't know what―"

Izaya couldn't hear the rest, the sounds of his own hurried footsteps resonating in his ears as his already pale face turned paler at the thought of anyone hearing the idiot's confession. He fumbled with the lock as Shizuo kept talking and then viciously opened the door, grabbed the protozoan by the arm and pulled him inside. "Are you insane?!" he asked, stunned by how much of an idiot the brute could be, his eyes widening in disbelief when the familiar stench of alcohol wafted through the air. "You fucking idiot," he ground out the words even though he didn't usually curse.

"Flea, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me," he honestly pleaded, not exactly aware of how insane he was acting in his drunken state.

Izaya laughed fitfully and then held his arms tightly as he breathed in and out in an attempt to calm down enough to not gut the man right there and then. Shizuo was drunk out of his mind, so Izaya knew that it would be a child's play to bring him to an untimely end. "Shizu-chan," Izaya said wearily and then sighed, "go home."

"I can't! It hurts..." Shizuo said brokenly as he leaned against the wall, looking as though he was about to fall.

"Hmm? What are you talking about?"

Shizuo's eyes stung, heavy with moisture, the sight of the one who had once been his victim squeezing his heart in a vice-grip. He opened his mouth and tried to get some much needed air into his lungs, but it didn't seem like there was ever enough. "Can't breathe."

Sighing, Izaya cautiously approached him and raised his right hand to unzip the protozoan's jacket, realizing that it was best to get the idiot to calm down before he lost it and did something worse. He slowly grabbed the slider and reluctantly proceeded to lower it, his eyes never leaving the brute's face. Because Shizuo was so easy to read, he was already familiar with most of the little signs that would precede one of the man's rage episodes, so he would have enough time to run the hell away from the monster if it looked like Shizuo were to lose his control once again. Besides, he wasn't helping Shizuo out of the goodness of his heart, after all, he still despised the man, but he wanted to prove to himself that he was not completely terrified of the monstrous and at the same time pathetic creature before him. "Okay, all done. Better now?" he asked and then backed away, not expecting Shizuo to shake his head and grab the front of his T-shirt as though he was in physical pain.

"Can't breathe..." Shizuo said again and lowered his head, his eyes scrunched in pain.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not a doctor, so I suggest you go see one right away." He then turned on his heels, wanting to go back to his desk, but he stopped in his tracks, Shizuo's words taking him completely by surprise.

"It's suffocating... the guilt, I can't breathe."

The corners of Izaya's lips moved upwards into a sadistic smile and he turned around, wanting to enjoy the beast's torment to the fullest. He was aware that Shizuo regretted his actions, but he hadn't known just how tortured the man really was. Feeling as though he was in complete power, he sauntered towards Shizuo and grabbed a fistful of blond hair, forcing his head up to better look into his eyes. "Is it really that painful?" He knew that he probably looked insane with that crazed smile on his face, but he couldn't help himself. He was enjoying the other's anguish too much. "Good!" he said when his unwanted guest nodded.

"I'm sorry," Shizuo said weakly.

"Never, I will never forgive you!" Izaya snarled and removed his fingers from the dyed locks. "Never!" he repeated as he turned around to go back to his desk, not expecting Shizuo to grab his right arm. Despite himself, Izaya was overcome with nausea, the brutish grip bringing back vivid details of his assault. He could almost hear the sounds of clothes rustling and of Shizuo's buckle unfastening. His whole body quaked with terror in response. Even so, he slowly turned his head, his voice dripping venom as he ordered the beast to release him. "Let go!"

"Please, I'm sorry," Shizuo said and pulled him closer, not realizing what he was doing.

Izaya tried to tear himself away from the beast's clutches or to at least reach the switchblade he kept in the right pocket of his pants, but somehow, during the ensuing struggles, they both ended up on the floor. The hold on his arm loosened and he tried to get away, but Shizuo grabbed his ankle and pulled him back. He shoved his right hand inside his pocket and pulled out the switchblade, his mind set on murdering the beast if it didn't let go.

"Forgive me..." were Shizuo's last words before he plummeted into unconsciousness.

"Shizu-chan, if you don't let go, I'm going to slit your throat," he warned, his tone a little strained, and then continued when he received no answer. "Shizuo?" His brows furrowed in confusion. "Did you pass out?" he asked in disbelief even though he knew the other might not be able to answer. His eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at the man, the desire to viciously plunge the switchblade into the beast over and over again vying for dominant influence over the more rational side of his brain that told him he was in no immediate danger and that such an extreme action was not necessary. Leaning forward, he grabbed Shizuo's fingers and tried to unsuccessfully unclench them from around his ankle, a frustrated sound slipping past his lips once he concluded that he couldn't free himself. "Stupid Shizu-chan," he snapped and kicked him in the head with his foot a couple of times, but the idiot still didn't let go.

"Shizu-chan, you'd better wake up before I start slicing your fingers off," he said, but, once again, he received no answer. "If you don't wake up, I'm going to carve the word monster into your forehead." His expression turned maniacal and he moved closer, really tempted to do what he said he would do. The problem was that too many questions would arise if Ikebukuro's beast showed up one day with something like that on its forehead and he didn't like the idea of anyone else finding out about what had happened between the two of them. As much as he wanted everyone to hate Shizuo, especially Tom and Kadota, he couldn't stand the idea of them knowing the truth. He sighed in frustration and folded his arms in front of his chest, now trying to decide whether to chop off the beast's fingers or not. That too would most likely raise unwanted questions, so he scrapped the idea and tried to come up with something else. Smiling, he repeatedly tapped his chin with a finger while he put his inimitable mind to work in finding something that would make him feel better and piss Shizuo off, but not enough for the beast to lose himself to that accursed rage of his.

An idea popped into his head and he made a small cut on the beast's hand, all the while smiling like a madman. He dipped the blade into the crimson liquid, grabbed the beast's head by the fake blond hair and proceeded to write the word monster in blood on Shizuo's forehead, carefully placing the characters that formed the word 'bakemono'.

Once done, he took a look at his work of art and smiled, hating that he had to wait a bit longer for the blood to dry. Unfortunately, he was starting to get sleepy, so he released the blond locks and lay down with his back against the floor. "Idiot protozoan!" he whined and then pouted. He absolutely hated that he couldn't go lie in his comfortable bed, but on the bright side, he was now certain that Shizuo was being suffocated by guilt and that made him chuckle darkly. People usually expressed their deepest desires while being drunk, and if Shizuo's deepest desire was to be forgiven instead of wanting to break him, then Izaya had nothing to fear anymore. "Shizu-chan, you're such a pathetic monster," he told his nemesis, looking forward to the moment when Shizuo woke up so that he could further enjoy the man's tormented expression. After a while, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, for once not at all worried that Shizuo would hurt him.

Chapter 34: Eye of the Storm

It was still early in the morning when Shizuo started shifting in his sleep, the strong light hitting his face making him scowl. He felt the splitting headache long before he was fully awake, and even though he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, his eyelids unwillingly fluttered open. He groaned and shifted some more, only realizing that he was holding onto something when he felt warm skin beneath his fingers. His brows furrowed in confusion and he slanted his head to see what it was, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of an unconscious Izaya lying on the floor. His face turned as white as a sheet and he withdrew his hand from around the frail ankle before he pushed himself away from the unmoving form as though he'd been burned, a suffocating feeling of self-loathing almost leaving him breathless.

He barely restrained himself from screaming in despair, the thought that he had once again assaulted Izaya making him want to run to the nearest window and take a headfirst dive into concrete. He reluctantly allowed his eyes to roam over the skinny form so that he could assess the damage, expecting to find some evidence of the atrocity he had once again committed, but to his surprise, nothing looked out of place. Izaya's clothes weren't torn as he'd expected, nor was he lying in a pool of his own blood, and after taking a brief look at himself, Shizuo realized that he too was very much dressed. Judging by what he was seeing, nothing had happened between the two of them, so he raised a hand to his chest and breathed in relief.

His eyes left Izaya's form and he took a look at his surroundings, only now realizing that he was most likely inside the man's apartment in Shinjuku instead of his own in Ikebukuro. The last thing he remembered was drinking at the bar, so he had no idea how he had ended up sprawled on the floor with Izaya sleeping next to him. His eyes drifted back to the man he had once tried to destroy, the peaceful expression on the flea's face making him wonder how someone like that could be so vicious when awake. Izaya's words from the previous day came to mind and he realized that it was truly ironic that what it took for the two of them to be able to stand in the same room without actively trying to kill each other was for Izaya to almost die by his hands.

Back then, in the alley he never wanted to lay eyes upon again, it felt as though nothing he could do to the flea would ever be enough to sate his thirst for revenge, and had he been in his right mind, he would've realized that leaving him there to die was not something that he could ever forgive himself for. The humane thing would've been to at least call an ambulance after seeing so much blood underneath Izaya's broken form, but he hadn't, because Heiwajima Shizuo was not human; he was Ikebukuro's beast, nothing else.

He saw Izaya shift and he held his breath, expecting the man to freak out and perhaps try to stab him with his switchblade. Brown-red eyes opened wide and Izaya stared at him in fear for only a moment before a smirk spread across his face and he started laughing. Shizuo instinctively tried to put some distance between them but he stopped in his tracks when he heard Izaya's cheerful, yet tinted with malice, voice.

"Ah, ah, don't run, Shizu-chan, not after we've spent such a wonderful night together," said Izaya in an amused tone before he proceeded to get up. He slipped the switchblade into the pocket of his pajamas and watched Shizuo's dilemma on whether to turn around or run away, the protozoan's indecision almost making him laugh. He'd been a bit surprised when he had woke up, perhaps even fearful, as much as he hated to admit, but the second he remembered the events of the previous night, he had instantly relaxed even though he was in the presence of the beast.

Shizuo reluctantly turned around, Izaya's terrifying smirk a tell-tale of the hell he had yet to pay for his transgressions. "Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

"Oh, but it's fine, Shizu-chan, because your confession was most entertaining." He expected the brute to feel embarrassed, so he was more than a little surprised when Shizuo's expression morphed into one of confusion. For a few moments, he couldn't help but look at him in disbelief. "Don't tell me you―"

"I really don't remember, I swear!" he hurried to answer, because that was the undeniable truth. Whatever he'd done or said to the flea, he couldn't recall.

"Tch!" Izaya made a sound of annoyance and folded his arms in front of his chest in a display or pure annoyance. "Why aren't you more predictable?"

Shizuo shrugged and cracked a smile, glad to see that Izaya was in a rather good mood for once. He awkwardly scratched the back of his head and nervously laughed. "What exactly did I say?" He immediately regretted opening his mouth, the flea's sadistic smirk telling him that it was best not to know.

Izaya unfolded his arms, lowering one while keeping his right hand above the heart. "Shizu-chan confessed his undying love for me," he said in what almost sounded like a serious tone, and then struggled to not burst into laughter when a myriad of expressions passed the protozoan's face.

Shizuo violently shook his head and backed away until he hit the wall, refusing to believe such a thing.

"Now, now, Shizu-chan, don't be shy. In fact, it would've been adorable," he said and approached the man until he was standing right in front of him, "if not for the fact that you almost fucked me to death."

"I'm so―" he started saying, but the rest of the words got caught in his throat when Izaya grabbed a fistful of blonde hair, the man's expression turning wild in the span of only a fraction of a second.

"Shizu-chan," said Izaya as he forced a smile on his face, "let's not get into that right now." He released the fake blonde hair and backed away just a bit, immediately raising his arm and pointing towards the upper level of his apartment. "You reek of alcohol, so could you please go brush your teeth? I really can't stand the smell."

Shizuo was too stunned to answer, so he forced his legs to move towards the stairs. Something in the back of his head shouted in protest at allowing the flea to boss him around, but he ignored the annoying voice and kept going, Izaya following closely behind him to most likely make sure that he wouldn't accidentally end up in his room.

"There's a new toothbrush inside the cabinet, so use that one," he said after he opened the door to the bathroom and invited his 'guest' inside.

Shizuo nodded and watched Izaya walk out and close the door behind him, leaving him alone in the expensive-looking bathroom. He hurried to the toilet and raised the seat, the need to relieve himself taking precedent over everything else. He sighed as he emptied his bladder, glad to get rid of the too much alcohol he had drank the night before. It felt like forever before it finally stopped, and once he was done he zipped up his pants and walked to the sink, the splitting headache making him groan. He turned the faucet on and put his hands under the stream, the cold water sending a shiver down his spine the moment it made contact with his skin. He was about to wash his face when he caught a glimpse in the mirror of something red beneath his fringe. He stared in confusion for a moment and grabbed the sink with his right hand while he raised his left one and slowly moved the strands of hair aside, a surprised gasp slipping past his lips when he saw the word written on his forehead.

A feeling of dread engulfed him, thinking that the flea had truly carved the word into his forehead, and his hand automatically tightening around the edge of the sink until the thing crumbled in his hands as though it was nothing. He moved closer to the mirror to inspect the damage, his stomach roiling with sickening intensity, only to breath in relief once he realized that bakemono was written in blood instead of being carved into his forehead. He backed away from the mirror and allowed his body to slump on the edge of the bathtub, broken laughter spilling past his lips. He wouldn't have felt a damn thing in his drunken state, so Izaya could've done it had he wanted, but the man hadn't and Shizuo felt as though he had dodged a bullet. At least he had an explanation for the cut on his hand, which he had gladly chose to ignore the moment he noticed it after waking up. It wasn't that uncommon for him to find cuts and scratches on his body and to not remember how he got them.

It was too early in the morning to deal with the flea, so he reached into the pockets of his jacket to pull out the lighter and the cigarette pack, panicking a little and then sighing in relief when he found them inside the right pocket of his pants. He always got irritated when he couldn't smoke, and he needed to be as calm as possible during the discussion he would surely have with the flea. He took his time smoking the first cigarette, and then the next one, struggling to remember what had happened the night before. He kept coming up blank no matter how hard he tried, and by the time he was ready to face Izaya, he'd already smoked four cigarettes. Reluctantly, he stood up, washed the characters written in blood on his forehead and opened the door, nervousness washing over him in waves. He knew that Izaya would most likely want to brutally murder him for destroying his sink, but he hoped that his suggestion would somehow placate the man.

As he walked downstairs, he marveled at the size and the look of the apartment, everything in it screaming Orihara Izaya. "Shizu-chan, what took you so long?" he heard the flea chirp from where he was sitting on the couch, the smell of french toast entering his nostrils and almost making him drool. His eyes zero-ed in on the plate placed on the coffee table and he barely restrained himself from marching over there and grabbing one of those heavenly slices of french toast. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Izaya, the man's smirk as annoying as ever. "Good one," he said as he pointed to his forehead.

"You should be grateful I didn't go through with it, unlike you," Izaya said, immediately noticing the mortified expression on the beast's face. "Ah, but what's done is done. Come, sit down." He saw Shizuo eyeing the door and he sighed loudly, the brute's head immediately snapping in his direction. "I never took you for a coward. Are you so afraid of facing me that'd you'd rather run away instead of talking to me?"

"You're right. I owe you at least this much." It was true that he would've preferred to run away instead, because that would've been easier than to face what he had done, but he chose to stay nonetheless. He forced his feet to take a step and then another, until he reached the couch and he sat down. Luckily, the flea had two couches, so Shizuo awkwardly sat down on the other one. Izaya was eerily quiet, and watching the man now dressed in his usual clothes, coat aside, made him feel uncomfortable, so he chose to instead look at the french toast.

"Help yourself," Izaya said in an amused tone, almost finding it hard to believe that the shy creature before him was the same vicious monster from back then. Shizuo eyed him suspiciously and Izaya couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud when he guessed the protozoan's thoughts. "Oh please, if I wanted you dead, I would've ripped out your still beating heart the moment I was able to walk again." As expected, Shizuo flinched, but that hadn't been his intention this time around. "Eat," he repeated and then watched as Ikebukuro's beast took a bite out of the food that his most hated enemy had made with his own two hands. The idiot's eyes immediately lit up, the image reminding him of a human child he once saw, the little boy happily stuffing his face with candy, oblivious to the cruel world around him. Shizuo was also a big fan of disgustingly sweet things and Izaya almost cringed at the memory of that too sweet bun Kasuka had so graciously bought for him. Unwillingly, he snorted out loud, causing Shizuo to stop mid-way as he was about to grab another piece of french toast. "It has nothing to do with you... just something I remembered," he said and dismissively waved a hand before folding his arms in front of his chest.

Shizuo watched him for a few moments and then picked up another slice, hunger winning over common sense. His eyes fell on the french toast in his hand and he stared, the question leaving his mouth before he even realized that he'd spoken it. "Why are you so good to me?"

Izaya's smirk fell and he snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. I treat all of my guests with respect, whether they deserve it or not."

"Does that help?" Shizuo asked, his mouth full after having just taken another bite from the slice of french toast in his hand.

"Of course it does. You should try it sometimes."

"No thanks," said Shizuo, scowling. "Sneaky shit like that isn't my style."

"So being respectful is not your style?" Izaya asked, barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes. "Don't you know the saying, 'You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'"?

"I caught you just fine without―" He never got to finish though, the realization of what he was about to say making the blood freeze in his veins. Slowly, he lowered his head, feeling completely ashamed for his thoughtless comment. He was about to apologize when he heard Izaya scoff and he raised his head, immediately noticing the stiff posture and the way the Informant kept his legs tightly closed, the image further driving the metaphorical knife into his already bleeding heart.

"You got lucky. That's what happened. I landed headfirst into concrete after being sent flying by the vending machine you threw at me. Unlike you, normal people don't just walk away from something like that. We can break when monsters like you try their hardest to kill us."

"Wait, so you're telling me that you were badly hurt before the chase even started?" Shizuo asked in disbelief.

Izaya nodded and unfolded his arms before placing them on his knees and leaning forward a bit. "You would've never caught me otherwise." Despite trying to look smug, his voice was dripping spite and he hoped that Shizuo would not notice because he was sick and tired of showing weakness in front of his mortal enemy.

"Oh..." Shizuo exclaimed softly as he put down half a slice of french toast, the newly provided information making him completely lose his appetite. "I'm sorry..."

"I don't need your apologies," Izaya ground out the words and forced himself to grab his own arms so that he could not reach for the switchblade he kept inside the pocket of his pants. "I wanted you to shed tears of blood, but in a moment of weakness, I chose to spare Kasuka of the pain you put me through, and because of that, I will never get my perfect revenge."

Shizuo's gaze drifted from the plate to Izaya's face and he recognized the feeling that Izaya was most likely drowning into as the man glared daggers at him. "Rage," he told him as he looked him in the eyes.

"What?" Izaya asked, nails painfully digging into his arms.

"That feeling you're experiencing right now, it's rage. Now multiply that by about a hundred times and you'll get an idea of how I feel most of the time. It's not that I want to hurt people or throw things around, it's more like I can't not do it."

Izaya scoffed once again as he glared at the beast sitting not that far from his person, a roil of cold fury blazing out of his eyes. "That's a pathetic excuse, Shizu-chan. Now you're going to tell me that you didn't really want to fuck me to death?"

"No, because that would only be half of the truth." His mind went back to that night, and as much as he hated to remember, he tried to recall his feelings so that he could better explain them to Izaya. "I was trapped somewhere between mindless rage and awareness, and when I realized what I was temped to do, I tried to give you a way out. That laugh of yours drove me insane," he said through gritted teeth, the sound echoing in his head even as he spoke. "I just wanted you to shut up." He ran a shaky hand through his hair and closed his eyes, struggling to chase away those awful feelings that belonged to that part of him that had enjoyed Izaya's pain. "If only you had fucking apologized..."

Izaya heard the resentment in the beast's voice and he dug his nails deeper into his own flesh, feeling more pissed off than he had felt in a very long time. "You idiot, don't you think that I would've said those words if I knew what you were thinking of doing?"

Spiteful laughter spilled past Shizuo's lips and he glared at Izaya as though he wanted to drive his fist through the idiot's skull. "No, I don't think you would've, because you'd never apologize to someone you see as being less than human."

Orihara Izaya wasn't one to get into fistfights, but he was tempted to get up and punch the idiot in the face. "Are you still blaming me for what happened?"

"No," Shizuo rushed to answer, surprised that Izaya would still think that, "but I was too far gone to stop, and the part of me that was still human was desperately clinging to the hope that you would apologize so that I could let you go. Now I know how stupid it was of me to ask the impossible."

"It wounds me to hear that you have such a low opinion of me. Ah, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have meant it, but how terrible can a few empty words be when compared to the agony of having your worst enemy shove his dick up your ass?" He shrugged then, some sort of morbid amusement making him smile. "Even you should know that going in dry is simply idiotic. Tell me, is this how you treat all your male partners?"

"I d-don't... I've never... done it with... with g-guys before," Shizuo stuttered, his face turning red.

"Relax, Shizu-chan, I was merely joking. I know that you're not normally into guys. If I didn't even know this much, I would be too ashamed to call myself an Informant."

Shizuo opened his mouth and closed it a few times before he found his voice. "What else do you know?" he asked so softly that Izaya had to strain his ears to hear him.

"Oh, Shizu-chan, I know all there is to know about you, now more than ever. Have you ever heard the saying, 'Know thy enemy?'" When Shizuo shook his head, Izaya continued. "An ancient Chinese General people refer to as Sun Tzu said, 'Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.' So now tell me, Shizuo, how much do you know about me?"

Shizuo didn't fail to notice how Izaya had used his full name, something the man hadn't done since that night. "I know that you're a blood-sucking flea who enjoys playing with people's lives as though they are nothing." He expected the man to feel insulted and snap at him, or perhaps insult him some more, but Izaya burst into laughter, the loud sounds bouncing off the apartment's walls.

"And that's exactly why you're nothing more than a stupid beast. You never think, just like how you didn't think the day we met. Tell me, Shizu-chan, do you remember what your first words were?" he inquired once he'd stopped laughing.

"'I don't like him,'" Shizuo easily answered, the memories of that day still as fresh as they had been right after it happened.

"'Oh? That's too bad. I think I could have some fun with you,'" Izaya answered with the same words from back then.

"'Shut up,'" Shizuo continued, his words echoing his own, but this time around, he didn't try to punch the man.

Izaya on the other hand got up and pulled out the switchblade, immediately noticing the beast tense at the sight of it but not exactly reacting beyond that. He flicked it open as he walked towards him and as soon as he was in front of him, he pressed it lightly against Shizuo's chest, the man not doing anything to stop him. "'Don't say that, Shizuo-kun. See? This is fun, isn't it?'" he quoted his younger self, a smile gracing his lips at the memory of showing Heiwajima Shizuo that someone out there could take him on and walk away unscathed. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

"No, it wasn't," said Shizuo, scowling, feeling the anger rise at the mere memory of how he'd tried and failed to kill Izaya that day. "I got hit by a truck!"

Izaya pulled back the switchblade and sat back down on his couch. "Oh please, you barely got a scratch from that."

"You paid the driver for hitting me! That's fucked up no matter how you look at it," Shizuo snapped, nails digging into his palms from how hard he was trying to not throw the couch Izaya was sitting on out the window, preferably while the pest was still sitting on it. "Stop laughing!"

"Come on, even you have to admit that was a brilliant move."

Shizuo almost face-palmed. "For a sociopath... yeah, it was."

Izaya's actually looked hurt for a moment, but he quickly put on one of his well-practiced masks before the beast even noticed how offended he felt by the remark. "No, Shizu-chan, you can't push the blame on me for this one; it was you who attacked me first." Even if you didn't like me, you should've tried to act like less of an asshole when our common friend tried to introduce me to you. 'This is Orihara Izaya from my middle school. Well, he's not that good a person, maybe I should say he's a horrible person. No, I didn't mean it in a bad way,'" said Izaya, quoting Shinra's exact words. "Really, Shizu-chan, can you blame me for wanting to mess with you after you tried to kill me for no reason at all?" His words seemed to have blocked the protozoan because Shizuo seemed to angrily stare into empty space.

"Look, it was that smug expression of yours. It pissed me off," Shizuo finally said when he realized that indeed he had been the one to start their feud as much as he hated to admit.

Izaya chuckled darkly as he raised his left foot and placed it on the couch before he settled his left arm on top of his knee, the disturbing sounds stopping abruptly the moment he raised his head and stared at the beast with the same expression he had the day they met.

Shizuo actually gasped, the sight taking him back to the time when he met his nemesis and the only man who could easily make a fool out of him. He couldn't deny that he wanted to punch that smug smile off the pest's face, but things were no longer the same and the man before him was no longer the teenager who used to fearlessly stare at him. No matter how hard Izaya was trying to hide it, Shizuo still felt the fear, a natural predator such as himself easily spotting those who were weaker than him. "You damn flea, I'm not going to punch you."

Izaya's expression turned smugger than it already was. "I know." Smirking, he lowered his leg and casually leaned on the couch, allowing his head to fall backwards.

"I'm never going to hurt you again," Shizuo continued even though he knew that it was of little consolation to the man he'd almost killed. "I promise."

Izaya snorted but otherwise remained silent, staring at the ceiling of his apartment while Shizuo struggled with the guilt he surely felt.

"Hey, I've never told you this before, but thank you."

Slanting his head to see the brute, Izaya quirked an eyebrow.

"Thank you for saving Kasuka."

Izaya's body turned rigid and he couldn't help but hiss the next words leaving his mouth. "I shouldn't have saved that emotionless freak."

"Kasuka is not emotionless," Shizuo hurried to correct him, not liking it when others got the wrong impression.

"He is. He told me so," Izaya said as he glared at the man he hated the most in the entire world.

A sad smile appeared on Shizuo's face, his mind going back to all those time when Kasuka showed real emotions. "That's what he honestly thinks, but it's not true. If he was emotionless, he wouldn't care about me at all, so thank you, really. Thank you for not condemning him to the hell I put you through," he told Izaya as he looked him straight in the eyes, hoping to make him understand the gratitude he felt towards him.

Izaya kept his mouth shut, trying to process the information he'd just received. Originally, he had assumed that Kasuka was pretending, but he never went as far as to think that Shizuo's little brother had been faking it for so long that he had forgotten he was doing it in the first place.

"You said you wouldn't get him involved again. Is that true?" Shizuo asked hesitantly, almost too afraid to hear the answer.

Izaya waved a hand, almost too bored to even answer such a useless questions after finding out some very important information. "As I've said, I'm no longer interested in him." At least not in the same way I've been until now.

It looked like Izaya was deep in thought, so after a minute or two of silence, Shizuo got up. "Thanks for the food. It was great." That seemed to snap Izaya from wherever his mind had been wondering because he got up as well, that annoying smirk back on his face.

"I'm surprised that a beast such as yourself was able to appreciate my french toast."

Shizuo grunted and fished out his lighter and the cigarette pack. "I have to go to work."

"I'm not holding you prisoner," Izaya said and then laughed when Shizuo scowled at him. "If possible, could you not come here again in a drunken state? Sleeping on the floor is not good for my back, if you know what I mean." As expected, Shizuo looked like a kicked puppy and Izaya couldn't help but enjoy the sight because a beast suffocated by guilt was far more amusing than one without a conscience. "Bye~!" he told him and continued to watch Shizuo until the brute disappeared inside the elevator.

Now that his nemesis was gone, he rushed upstairs to his bedroom and threw himself onto the bed, stretching and yawning at the same time. He stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying the soft feel of the mattress against his stiff back, until he got up and started to jump up and down on the bed. "Shizu-chan, I hate you so much. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

He then spread his arms and closed his eyes as he kept jumping, seeing the blue sky with his mind's eyes.

"Your unbeastly guilt is so amusing, that I can't stop myself from wishing to utterly...

BREAK YOU!"

Chapter 35: One Rainy Day

Before Shizuo's unexpected visit and their somewhat civilized conversation the next day, Izaya had felt the need to stay away from the man for a while. It wasn't that he was actively trying to avoid him, but work had been piling up for a while and he wanted to catch up, not to mention that he was tired of hearing Namie complain how he was such a useless human being and that he should go off himself instead of wasting oxygen. He hated to admit, but the woman never ceased to amuse him. Smirking, he glanced in her direction, waiting for her to feel his stare and to snap at him like she always did.

"What now?" she asked, sounding tired more than anything else.

Izaya's smirk widened, the sadistic gleam in his eyes a clear sign that he was enjoying her apathy. "I was wondering if Namie-san could go make me a cup of coffee." He expected her to tell him to jump out the window of his own apartment, or to at least protest, but instead of being predictable, she sighed loudly, got up and went into the kitchen. He simply stared at her retreating back until she disappeared from sight, his eyes narrowing in confusion while he kept trying to figure out why she would be in such low spirits.

Reclining in his desk chair, he slowly started to swivel in it, deciding that the curious case of Yagiri Namie needed further investigation. Before her day off, she had been her usual annoying self, but ever since she came to work in the morning, something seemed off about her. "Ah!" he exclaimed and swished in his chair from side to side, anxiously waiting for her to come back so that he could tease her. His eyes were most likely glowing with malevolent intent, but when it came to Namie, he didn't care whether or not she knew how much he was enjoying himself whenever he figured something out and he would feel the burning need to embarrass her.

As his eyes drifted over to the screen of his laptop, he saw that he had a new email. He didn't always check them right away, but since Namie was still in the kitchen, he decided to quickly see what it was about. The job seemed boring, but it still caught his interest when he saw that the man he was supposed to find was most likely in Ikebukuro. He could easily send one of his employees to find Saito Kaito―and he almost burst into laughter when he read the name―but the thought of running into Shizuo made him want to go there himself. Just thinking about the beast got his blood boiling, and it was about time he demanded compensation for the damages. He quickly looked up information on the man he was supposed to find, which was not that hard to find considering how people put their whole lives online without regard to their own safety, and then typed on his phone the address where he was most likely hiding. Happy that he had everything he needed, he grabbed his keys and got up.

"Here's your coffee," Namie said just as she set the steaming cup on his desk.

"I'm sorry, Namie-san, but you see, I have to go work right now, and as much as I'd love to cheer you up after you got dumped by your brother, again, I have no choice but to leave." His face almost split in two when she threw him the nastiest glare she could muster and he didn't even bother to suppress his malicious chuckle when she nearly stomped back to her desk. "Oh, you can have the coffee if you wish."

She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked at the coffee cup with disgust before she shot him a glare. "Shove it!"

This time Izaya burst into laughter. "If I don't come back by the time you finish your work, go home."

"I don't need you to tell me that!"

Izaya simply shrugged and headed for the door, not before glaring at the fur-trimmed jacket he had no choice but to wear. He inwardly cursed Shizuo for ruining his favorite coat as he stepped outside into the cold weather, the murky sky a clear sign that it was going to rain. "Stupid Shizu-chan," he mumbled under his breath and headed for the train station. Normally, he would pay attention to the humans around him, but what used to be a pleasurable activity seemed more of a chore ever since his world had gotten turned upside down by Ikebukuro's beast. How could he watch them from above after being crushed into the ground? Shizuo had made him feel small and he loathed him for it because Orihara Izaya was meant to be a god. Fingers tightening around the switchblades he kept inside his pockets, he stepped into the train and sat down, not even noticing the disturbing smirk of a certain passenger sitting further in the back. His eyes drifted to the window and he gazed at the outside world for a while, so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't even sense someone approaching until he felt a hand on his shoulder. His head snapped in that direction and his eyes darkened, already starting to regret taking on the job. His knuckles started to turn white from how hard he was gripping the switchblades.

"Orihara-san, long time no see," Aoba said and sat down next to him. "There were rumors about you being dead, but I knew they weren't true."

"Good for you," was Izaya's curt reply before he turned his attention back to the outside world, small droplets of rain already starting to hit the window. He was not in the mood to entertain a kid who hated humans, and if he was lucky enough, his sisters' friend would get the message. Unfortunately for him, that didn't seem to be the case.

"Orihara-san, do you remember what you told me when we first met?"

Slowly, Izaya turned his head with a look of complete boredom on his face. "Oh, so we've met before?"

"I may not be someone important, but I believe that I am memorable enough for you to at least remember who I am."

"It was worth a try," Izaya said, not even bothering to hide his annoyance at having ran into him.

Aoba felt his eye twitch, and as much as he hated to admit, he did feel a bit humiliated by the way in which Izaya was looking at him as though he was an insect he could step on whenever he so wished. "'You have to love humans more. That way maybe one day you'll be able to meet someone whom you would be dying to be used by. I haven't met such a person yet, but since I'm in love with all humankind, I believe I can survive on my masochist's pleasure alone even if I'm used.' That's what you said."

"Fine, I remember," Izaya admitted and hoped that the kid would disappear from his sight, but Aoba's smile only grew wider, darker, as though he knew something that Izaya himself didn't. His eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at him, fighting off the desire to flick open his switchblade and plunge it into Aoba's little, black heart. "Is there a point to all of this?" he finally asked with a smile on his face after putting one of his more cheerful masks on.

"Why did you stop loving humans?"

Izaya felt as though he'd been viciously hit in the chest but he still hoped that the shock wasn't showing on his face. He still loved humans and he would never stop loving them no matter what, but he had a lot of things on his mind and he couldn't call himself a god as long as he was still haunted by vicious thrusts, cold hands and the beast's grunts of pleasure that somehow hurt him more than he ever wanted to admit. Ever so slowly, the corners of his lips moved upwards into a disturbing smile and he knew that Aoba was starting to sense the danger he was in when he saw him infinitesimally back away. "How could I not love humanity when it's so fascinating? Ah, but someone like you who hates humans will never understand."

Aoba stayed quiet for a few moments, studying Izaya. "Someone who claims to love humans sure was busy ignoring everyone around him," he said and then he almost jumped in surprise when Izaya started laughing.

"Us adults have jobs to do, so what does a child like you know?" Izaya asked once he stopped laughing, hoping that Ran's little brother felt insulted enough to simply fuck off.

Aoba continued though, expecting to see some cracks in the man's normally flawless facade. "Or is it that you've found that someone whom you're dying to be used by and you're so distracted that you no longer notice the humans that you claim to love so much?" At this point, he expected to at least get a nasty glare from the Informant, so when Izaya's smirk got even more disturbing, he began to question his own assumptions.

"I see what this is," Izaya said and hooked an arm around the other's neck as he leaned towards him until his lips were almost touching a cold ear. "Are you dying to be used by me? Is that why you're practically stalking me? I'm sorry, but I don't fuck boys," he whispered in the most disgusted tone he could muster before he got up and headed for the doors, but not before waving his hand and saying good bye to an extremely shocked Kuronuma Aoba, hoping to have embarrassed him so much that he would never be tempted to bother him again. Judging by the stricken expression on the other's face, the plan had been a complete success.

He didn't leave right away, no, he waited outside on the platform, all the while staring at Aoba through the window until the train started moving again and he could no longer see his face. Only then did he finally allow his smirk to drop. A moment later he turned around and rushed to a nearby staircase that people didn't normally use, the nauseating feeling leaving him weak at the knees. What did Aoba knew about being used? Nothing! What did Aoba knew about being used by someone for that person's own sick pleasure? NOTHING!! he screamed inside his head just as his body slid down the wall the moment he reached the stairs. He was shivering so badly that he could hear his own teeth chattering, and he looked around, wanting to make sure that no one would see him as he wrapped his arms around his torso and made himself smaller, his body hunched so badly that it looked as though he was in agony.

His anguish wasn't physical though, at least not anymore, but he could still feel and remember the beast's marks on his body as though they were as fresh as they had been back then, his scarred mind incapable of forgetting them. He stayed like that for a while, eyes scrunched up as he fought to chase away the memories of just how exactly Shizuo had used him. He despised Aoba for reducing him to a pathetic shaking mess with only a few words and he vowed to find a way to one day destroy him. He thought he was doing a good job at hiding how broken he was on the inside, but Ran's brother had read him like an open book and despite the disdain he felt for the teenager, he couldn't help but applaud him for his feat.

He was far from being completely defeated though, and despite how faint he was feeling, he got up and started walking away, refusing to succumb to the pain, the terror and all the other things that made him want to crawl into a dark deep hole where no one could find him. Small shivers still shook his body, but he put on a cocky smile and tried to pay attention to the humans around him as they kept trying to hide from the rain. Even after being left to die in that cold alley, he still loved the feeling of the rain on his skin, and knowing that Shizuo hated it made him love it even more.

He softly sighed when he realized that his mind had been wandering again, but luckily he was near the place where he assumed that Kaito was hiding, so he shook his head and focused on the task at hand. It was hard to believe how the person from whom Kaito stole an important USB Flash Drive, which was needed to access an account, hadn't been able to find out about the man's step brother, but that suited him just fine, because the more jobs he finished, the more his reputation would grow. His smile grew as he went around the corner, not expecting to literally run into the beast. A shudder ran down his spine when he realized into whom he'd just bumped, but he immediately composed himself and smirked as he backed away. "Shizu-chan, Tanaka-san, fancy seeing you here."

Tom had expected Izaya to immediately bolt away and for Shizuo to uproot the nearest stop sign and to chase after him, but against his expectations, both of them kept their ground. "Orihara-san, I'm glad to see you alive and well," he said after a few moments of awkward silence, the two arch enemies staring at one another with expressions that he'd never seen on their faces before.

Izaya slowly turned to Tanaka Tom, and even though he was smiling, he hoped that Shizuo's boss could see the disdain in his eyes. "Are you now?"

Tom was taken aback for a second. "Why would you think otherwise?"

"Oh, I don't know... it might have something to do with you giving my business card to Shizu-chan."

"He only gave me the card after I promised that I would only talk to you, I swear," Shizuo said, taking both of them by surprise with his sudden intervention.

Izaya chuckled and then shrugged. "It's fine, it's fine! Shizu-chan only broke my sink this time around." Tom cringed, probably feeling guilty. Shizuo looked as though he had forgotten that he'd broken it in the first place, but Izaya couldn't really hold it against him, not when he knew that his protozoic brain was not capable of retaining too much information.

Knowing that his friend wanted to be anywhere but there, Shizuo pulled out his wallet and handed him a few bills. "Could you please go buy a pack of cigarettes? I'm out." He watched Tom walk away before he turned his attention back to Izaya. "I'm sorry about the sink, it slipped my mind. I'm going to pay for it, I promise."

Smirking, Izaya pulled out his phone, typed something, and sent the message to Shizuo. "That sink was worth three times your monthly salary. I expect the money to be sent to this account." He saw Shizuo pale at the news and he couldn't stop the malicious smile when he saw the man's distress. "Let me guess, you won't have any money left to buy your precious milk and sweets?"

"N-No, it's fine. I'll pay," Shizuo replied reluctantly before he slipped the phone back into the pocket of his jacket and moved closer to the wall as he sought shelter from the rain. His eyes drifted to his nemesis and he couldn't help but voice out his surprise. "You cut your hair."

"How observant of you," said Izaya in a mocking tone, "and while we're at it, I'm also wearing a jacket, because a stupid beast dirtied my precious coat."

Sighing out loud, Shizuo scrubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. Tell me where you got it from and I'll buy you a new one."

"Don't you think that if I could find that particular design I would've bought another one by now?" he asked through gritting teeth, barely stopping himself from stomping his foot on the wet pavement like a spoiled brat. "It was a limited edition! Limited!" Besides, why would I wear something you bought?"

"Good point."

"Tch!"

Shizuo nervously bit his lower lip. "You're not going to tell him, are you?"

"Everyone deserves to know what kind of monster you are, but rest assured, I won't say a word. It'd probably hurt me more than it would hurt you. I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear what you are capable of, but my reputation would go down the drain if people found out that Ikebukuro's beast dragged me into an alley and fucked me raw."

"Do you really have to be so... so―"

"Blunt? Yes." Feeling thoroughly pissed, he turned his head so that he could no longer see Shizuo, the man's face making him want to shove his switchblade into that idiotic brain of his. "I have to go, there's work for me to do in Ikebukuro." He heard Shizuo growl and he sneered in response. "If you don't like it, then try to stop me." When Shizuo didn't do anything, he turned his head and looked straight into his eyes, a challenging smirk adorning his face. "That's what I thought," he said, and as he started walking away, he realized that Shizuo being there couldn't have been a coincidence.

His hands tightened around the switchblades and he increased his speed, knowing that he had to get to Kaito before the debt collectors paid the man a visit. As soon as he went around the corner, he started running towards the man's apartment building, cursing the brute and his boss for interfering with his job. Once inside, he went up the stairs, two at a time, and then rang the doorbell as soon as he found himself in front of the man's apartment. "Saito-san, open up! Saito-san, the debt collectors are coming for you. Your brother sent me to get you to safety, please come with me." At the mention of his brother, the man opened the door, and Izaya almost laughed when he saw a look of mixed worry and disbelief. Some humans were stupid enough to believe him right away, but the one before him seemed skeptical.

"How do you know about the debt collectors?" Saito asked as he nervously grabbed his sweatshirt.

"They're on their way here, we don't have time to talk. Please come with me!"

"What's my brother's name?"

"Ryuunosuke. I assure you, he's the one who sent me," Izaya said and sighed loudly. "Okay, fine, if you don't want to come with me, then feel free to stay here and wait for Heiwajima Shizuo to show up and break your limbs one by one until you give him the money you owe his boss." As soon as he heard Shizuo's name, Kaito ran inside the apartment to put on a jacket and to most likely get the USB Flash Drive that Izaya was supposed to recover. The Informant smirked when the man reappeared a few moments later, slipping something inside the right pocket of his jacket as he walked out of the apartment. It surprised Izaya how someone as dumb as Saito Kaito could steal something so valuable, but he guessed that some people were just lucky like that. As soon as the man closed the door, they rushed down the stairs and dashed out of the apartment building at the same time that Tom and Shizuo were crossing the street.

"IIIIZAAAAYAAAAA!" Shizuo roared the moment he figured out what was happening, the flea's jaunty wave sending him into a murderous frenzy. He was not so far gone as to not remember that he was not supposed to hurt him, but at the same time they had to catch Saito so they had no choice but to go after them. He also didn't want Izaya to hurt Tom, so he turned towards his friend and made a suggestion. "Get Saito, I'll get Izaya." Tom nodded and the chase began, the insect's annoying laughter grating on his nerves.

"It's been a while," Izaya said loudly enough for the beast to hear him. He expected Shizuo to insult him or to throw something at him, but the man remained silent. He chanced a glance backwards but he instantly regretted it, a wave of terrifying images violently crashing into his mind. His steps faltered for a moment, but he pulled himself together and slowed down his pace instead of dashing forward, knowing that Saito couldn't otherwise keep up with him if he went ahead at full speed. Luckily, Shizuo was also running slower because of Tom, and Izaya couldn't help but laugh at the hilarity of the situation. He turned his head and eyed the pocket where the USB Flash Drive was located, trying to find a way to get his hands on it without Saito noticing. "I know a place where we can hide at, but you're going to have to run faster," he told the other man right before he went around a corner, Saito barely having time to adjust his direction.

"I can't go any faster!" Kaito whined.

"Then you might as well give up now. I'm sure Ikebukuro's beast will enjoy breaking every bone in your body." His words had the desired effect because the man increased his speed as though his life depended on it. Izaya chuckled darkly and started sprinting through alleyways and side-streets with Kaito in tow, glancing back once in a while to see if he'd lost Shizuo. "Wait here while I distract them," he said just as he grabbed Kaito's arm and pulled him behind a store, at the same time using the opportunity to snatch the USB Flash Drive. "I'll be back soon." He waited until the man nodded before he slipped through the narrow space between the store and the wall, not caring any longer if they found Kaito or not. He was not done playing with the beast though, so he went back the same way, Shizuo making it easy for him when he roared out his name for the whole world to hear. He spotted the beast not that far from where he'd stopped, and even though his limbs were trembling with fine tremors, he still went ahead and revealed himself to the monster.

"Shizu-chan, if you catch me, I'll tell you where I stashed him," he chirped and started running in the opposite direction, Shizuo immediately following after him. As expected, Tom stayed behind to look for Kaito, and that suited Izaya just fine because he didn't want any interruption. Now, more than ever, he was curious to see what his archenemy would do if he caught him again, and even though he was terrified at the prospect of Shizuo losing himself to his anger, he still needed to know if the beast could keep his promise. He was obviously playing with fire, but he didn't want to think about that as he dashed through the streets, Ikebukuro's beast hot on his heels. With Saito and Tom out of the way, both of them could run at full speed. Surprisingly enough, Izaya was starting to enjoy the chase despite the nauseating feeling burning through the pit of his stomach. Even the water splashing beneath his feet each time he stepped into a puddle sent his mind back to that evening, but this time around he was not injured, and even though he was thinner and slightly weaker than before, Shizuo still couldn't catch him no matter how hard he was trying.

Had he been less of a coward, he would've led Shizuo to the place where the man had caught him back then, but he doubted that he could go anywhere near it without breaking down, so instead he lured him into an alley from where he could scream for help and get it in case he found himself in a bad situation. He shivered when a gust of wind hit his cold and wet face as he sprinted through the narrow space, Shizuo so close behind him that he could almost feel the man's breath on his neck. He wasn't even halfway through when Ikebukuro's beast grabbed the hood of his jacket and pulled him backwards, and even though he was slammed quite hard into the wall, it wasn't anywhere near as painful as it had been the first time he'd been caught. At that point, he expected Shizuo to either question him about Saito or to attack him, so he couldn't have been more surprised when the man pulled back his hands and looked at him with worry evident in his eyes.

"D-Does it s-still hurt... d-down there?" Shizuo stuttered as he backed away until he hit the opposite wall.

Izaya's face immediately turned red in embarrassment, and before he even knew what he was doing, he took a step towards Shizuo and viciously slapped him, the sound bouncing off the walls and resonating throughout the narrow space. "W-Why would you a-ask me t-t...that?!"

Shizuo raised his hand and touched the swollen skin, a feeling of shame making him lower his head to hide his burning face. "I caught you..." he said in a meek voice.

"Stupid beast, don't overestimate yourself. Even though it was our first chase in over three months, you still wouldn't have caught me had I not allowed it." As expected, Shizuo snapped his head up and glared at him, and even though Izaya wanted to punch him this time around, he shoved his hands inside the pockets of his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the two switchblades he always carried with him. "What? Did you think that you could ever catch me without having cracked open my head first? Idiot." The corners of his lips quirked upwards into a malicious smile, and as they glared at each other, he could tell that Shizuo was really mad at him. "You're angry, aren't you? You must be, so what are you going to do about it?" His malevolent smile morphed into a vicious smirk. "You're going to fuck me again, hmm? You're go―" He never got to finish though, the beast's fist flying past his head and crashing into the wall behind him, the unforeseen outburst turning his knees to jelly.

"Shut up," Shizuo growled in a low, dangerous, and at the same time tired tone as he pulled back his fist. "Just shut the fuck up."

And with that Izaya watched the monster of his nightmares walk away, the hurt expression on Shizuo's face telling him that the beast had finally been tamed. Fine tremors shook his body, but a malicious smile still spread across his face at the thought of bringing Shizuo to a point where he would drown in guilt and self-loathing. I'm just getting started, Shizu-chan, so don't even think about taking your own life before I'm done.

Chapter 36: No Ordinary Love

Shizuo kept cursing under his breath as he retraced his steps back to where he'd left Tom, but the man was no longer there, and as much as he wanted to smoke a cigarette and fill his lungs with some much needed nicotine, he couldn't do anything about it until he was out of the rain. Sighing out loud, he was about to pull out his phone to call Tom when he saw a furious Shinra stomping towards him, the man raising his hand to slice him with a scalpel the moment he was in range. Without hesitation, Shizuo caught his wrist and squeezed it until the instrument slipped out of Shinra's hand and hit the pavement with a loud clack. He then wrapped his right hand around the man's neck and slammed him into the nearest wall, wincing when he realized that he might've used too much force, the blood trickling down the doctor's neck and tainting the rain soaked lab coat a clear indication that he'd injured the man's head.

"Where is he?" Shinra asked through gritting teeth once he was able to see again, his vision having gone black the moment his head made contact with the wall.

"Who...? Oh, Izaya... I left him in an alley nearby," he answered, still a bit confused as to why the doctor would attack him out of nowhere.

Shinra roared and started kicking and punching Shizuo, wanting to destroy the beast even if it would be the last thing he did. He knew that something would go wrong the moment he heard a few shop owners complaining how the peace had been shattered now that Ikebukuro's beast was back to chasing Orihara Izaya, so he rushed to stop them before it was too late. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he'd made it in time. "HOW COULD YOU??" he cried out loud in despair.

Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion and he had to fight off the impulse to tighten his grip around the man's neck for being an asshole to him, but when he realized why Shinra was so upset, he grabbed both his wrists and pinned them to the wall. "Calm down, I didn't do anything to him."

"Why should I believe you?" Shinra asked, shaking in rage, but at the same time hoping that for once, Shizuo had succeeded in controlling himself.

"Look, you can call him if you don't believe me. I didn't hur―... I didn't hurt him like that!"

The dark grey eyes behind the glasses narrowed. "How did you hurt him then?"

Shizuo felt more exhausted than he had felt in a very long time, the constant accusations and insults wearing him down. Everyone had a limit to how much they could take, and he realized that he'd just reached his. "None of your goddam business, you bastard! Who the hell do you think you are, coming here and swinging your little knife at me in the middle of the street?" he snarled and then tightened his grip around the doctor's wrists until a few pained noises slipped past those almost pale lips. "I've beaten people within an inch of their miserable lives for a lot less."

"O-Once a m-monster, always a monster," Shinra said in-between gasps of pain.

"FUCK YOU!" Shizuo roared and captured both his wrists in one hand before he grabbed Shinra's jaw and squeezed it hard enough to bruise. "What do YOU know? You don't give a shit about anyone but Celty! You didn't even say one word to Izaya when he tried to get me killed, did you? Not even one..."

Shinra's expression turned malicious despite the pain. "Is t-that it? Is that w-why you're so... you're so pissed at m-me? Cause I don't give a d-damn about you? Oh, I'm s-sorry," he said in a mocking tone and tried to kick him again, something he immediately regretted when Shizuo almost pulverized his wrists with how hard he was squeezing them. This time around he did cry out in pain, and just when he thought that he would really get his wrists broken, he was peeled off the wall and shoved away roughly. He had no way to soften the sudden pull of gravity, so his left elbow took the brunt of the fall when it made contact with the pavement, a shrill leaving his lips when he felt the bone crack, the doctor in him immediately identifying it as an olecranon fracture.

"Stay the hell away from me," Shizuo sneered and started walking away.

"A-And you stay away f-from Izaya, you hear me? I swear that I will k-kill you in the most painful way I c-can imagine if you t-touch him again," Shinra threatened after he pushed himself off the ground despite the pain that made him want to curl into a tight ball. "Don't t-think I won't do it!"

"You do that," Shizuo said without looking back. He could hear Shinra's voice from somewhere behind him, but he kept ignoring the insults, not wanting to go back when he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop himself before breaking a few of the man's bones. If there had ever been a bridge between them, that bridge was gone, and the only thing left was a chasm which they would never be able to cross again.

Behind him, Shinra was struggling with the pain while cradling the broken arm to his chest, which made it extremely difficult for him to pull out his phone and call Izaya. No matter what Shizuo said, he couldn't trust the monster to speak the truth.

"Are you all right?" asked a woman who happened to witness the fight. "Is there any way I can help?"

Shinra had to force himself to smile even though he only felt agonizing pain. "I'm f-fine, but could you p-please help me with m-my phone? It's in the left pocket of my pants." She was obviously not comfortable with shoving her hand into a stranger's pockets, but she did it anyway. "Thank you," he said as soon as she handed him the device, and then he turned around and walked away, tightly gripping the phone. The pain in his arm made it hard for him to even think, and if Izaya was fine, then calling him was an extremely bad idea, but he needed to know if he was all right. The phone only rang two times before Izaya obviously turned it off, and Shinra immediately assumed that his friend didn't want to talk to him.

That aside, as much as he wanted to ignore the problem, his arm was broken, and he had to take care of it whether he wanted to or not. It was not the type of injury he could fix by himself, which meant that he had no choice but to go to a hospital. A clear sound of irritation slipped past his lips and he dialed a number to call a cab, all the while starting to regret his earlier outburst. He should've known better than to provoke Shizuo, but he'd panicked, his body going cold at the thought of having to fix an almost dying Izaya again. He'd never been worried about either of them before, not even when they used to show up at his apartment and bleed all over his floor, because he always thought they would be all right, but then Shizuo had to go ahead and mess everything up. Annoyed, he lightly kicked the lamp post he was leaning against as he waited for the cab, wondering why it was taking so long for the driver to get there. He was about to call the number again when he saw the car appearing around the corner and he pushed himself away and sighed in relief, looking forward to getting his arm taken care of so that he could move to other more important things weighing on his mind.

"To the nearest hospital," he told the driver after he struggled to pull out his wallet and handed the man a few bills. His left arm was a mass of raw agony and his head wasn't doing that better either. He could feel warm blood trickling down the back of his neck and he hoped that it wasn't too bad because he couldn't afford to lose consciousness anytime soon. He didn't pay any attention to the outside world as he was driven there, and by the time he reached the hospital, he had to lean against the walls of the building to not fall down. Unfortunately, the head injury was worse than he'd expected, and the last thing he saw before he slipped into unconsciousness was a nurse rushing towards him.

***

When he woke up again a couple of hours later, his arm was in a cast and it looked as though the wound on the back of his head had been stitched up. He groaned and tried to get up, but he was pushed back by a doctor he knew.

"Don't even think about it."

"I have important things to take care of, so I can't waste my time lying in bed," Shinra whined and tried to push Sakamoto away.

The man gently pushed Shinra back on the bed. "I can't let you go, not after seeing the head injury. It looks bad, so you need to stay here under observation."

"Seriously, I'm fine! Now, could you please let go of my arm?" Shinra demanded in an irritated tone. "I'll come back tomorrow, but I really have to go right now."

Sakamoto glowered at him for a few longs moments before he sighed and moved away. "Doctors are terrible patients. Just don't blame me if you end up dead in the meantime."

"I won't!" Shinra chirped and got up even though he was still feeling a little dizzy. His eyes scanned the hospital room and he realized that his clothes weren't anywhere in sight. "I can't leave like this. Where are they?"

"They?"

"My clothes! Where are they?"

The doctor sheepishly scratched the back of his head and gave him an apologetic look. "I gave a little something to one of the nurses to wash them for you."

"What am I supposed to wear now?!" Shinra cried and collapsed on the bed.

"Hmm, I have a spare change of clothes. You can have those."

"Great, thanks," he said and patiently waited for Sakatamo to bring them to him.

"They aren't anything special, but they should fit you," said the doctor as he handed him the clothing articles once he came back, still reluctant about having Shinra leave the hospital after the man had received such a powerful blow to the head. "I didn't call Celty."

Shinra raised his head and smiled. "Thanks! I wouldn't want her to worry over nothing."

"It's not nothing! Your arm is broken, your head got banged against something, pretty hard might I add, and what's with the beginning of bruises on your wrists, neck and face?" he asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What the hell happened?"

"I had a run-in with an old friend," Shinra said, his smile gone and replaced by a frown.

"A... friend...?"

"Yes." Shinra didn't say anything after that. Instead, he waited for Sakamoto to leave the room before he proceeded to take off the hospital gown and put on the man's clothes, a feat not easy to achieve with a broken arm. They weren't exactly his style, but the grey T-shirt, black pants and jacket worked pretty well together. His eyes then scanned the room for his phone and wallet, and once he found them he slipped them into his pocket and walked out. Sakamoto was no longer outside, but that worked for him just fine because he was not in the mood to get lectured again on how he should stay in bed instead of walking around.

***

It was starting to get dark outside when Izaya heard the doorbell, and even though he was tempted to pretend that he wasn't home, he got up from his desk chair and went to answer it anyway. He expected a different number of people to look for him, but an injured Shinra was not one of them. "What happened to you?" he asked, and even though he knew that it wasn't right to enjoy the doctor's suffering, he did nonetheless.

Shinra sighed loudly and fixed his glasses. "Shizuo happened," he said tiredly, the headache having gotten worse ever since he'd woken up in the hospital.

Izaya's first reaction was to tighten his fingers around the handle, a flare of anger rising within him, but when he remembered what Shinra had done to him, his murderous expression turned into a smirk. "Really now? And how exactly did that happen?"

"Do you mind?" Groaning, Shinra pushed Izaya aside and walked inside the apartment, completely ignoring the man's outraged expression. His eyes fell on the couch closer to the door and he hurried there, unsure on how much longer he could stand before collapsing on the floor, his vision having gone slightly darker around the edges long before he even got to the door. The moment he sat down he closed his eyes and reclined against the couch, sighing softly. "Don't look at me like that. I can feel your glare even with my eyes closed."

"Oh? That's quite the feat!" Izaya said and chuckled darkly as he sat down on the other couch, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally at the man's rain-soaked clothes dripping on his black couch.

Shinra's expression turned into a frown before he slowly canted his head and opened his eyes to look at Izaya. "You barge into my apartment all the time, so how is this any different from what you do?"

Izaya simply shrugged, an amused expression adorning his face. "Well, excuse me for needing a doctor once in a while. At least now you know what it means to confront Shizu-chan," he said, and he was surprised to hear Shinra growl, the usually calm man looking more pissed than he'd seen him in a long time.

"That strength is not normal," Shinra muttered before he finally straightened his back to give Izaya his full attention. He was feeling slightly better now that he wasn't standing, but the headache was still bad enough to make him crave the sweet relief of unconsciousness. Whatever painkillers Sakamoto had given him, they weren't working.

Brown-red eyes fell upon Shinra's reddened jaw and Izaya felt his stomach roil with sickening intensity as he envisioned Shizuo hurting Shinra, the man's injuries a tell-tale of what must've happened between them. The doctor ran a shaky hand through his hair and that's when Izaya saw the beginning of bruises on those frail wrists. His fingers curled into the material of his pants, the simmering anger he felt towards him going down just a bit. "So how was it?" he finally asked in malicious tone, because despite how much he sympathized with the doctor, he couldn't forgive him for what had happened during their last meeting. Shinra's tired eyes turned towards him, the man's confused expression telling him that he had no idea what he wanted to know. "How was it to be at Shizu-chan's mercy?"

Shinra tilted his head and blankly stared ahead for a while, trying to figure out how to answer the question. "Painful," he said after a while. He then looked straight into Izaya's eyes, the man's blood-thirsty smirk telling him that he was enjoying his suffering. "Extremely painful." Unconsciously, he ran his fingers across his jaw, wincing in pain each time he pressed too hard into the skin. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Izaya sneered before he reclined against the couch and crossed both his arms and legs. "I'm not that petty," he said coldly. Feeling annoyed, he snapped his head in the other direction and glared at an invisible spot on the wall.

"There was no room for fear with how angry I was," Shinra answered honestly, and when Izaya turned his head and gave him a questioning look, he continued. "I heard some people saying they saw him chasing you throughout Ikebukuro. I thought he hurt you again, so when I found him, I confronted him, but I'm just a doctor, so I couldn't do anything..." he said, his tone dripping with spite. "Still, I'm relieved to see you're all right."

Despite how much he wanted to hate Shinra, Izaya still felt warmth spread throughout his chest, but unfortunately, that only made him angrier. "Hypocritical words coming from someone who tried to kill me with his bare hands." Shinra's flinch told him that the doctor was most likely regretting his actions, but that still didn't make him feel any better.

Shinra lowered his head, fingers painfully digging into his left arm. "I'm sorry... I lost it."

Hearing those words, Izaya saw red, and he had to fight the urge to get up and hurt him. "That's what he said," he ground out the words. "He hadn't meant to almost fuck me to death, and you didn't mean to almost strangle me to death... you both just lost it after all."

Feeling as though he'd just been punched in the guts, Shinra stared wide-eyed at Izaya for a few long moments before he finally found his voice. "I'm so―"

"I don't want to hear it!" Izaya hissed before he jumped to his feet and stomped over to Shinra. Bending down, he fisted his hand into the man's T-shirt, his whole body thrumming with rage as he shook him. "You betrayed me," he said in a wounded voice, not caring if the other could read him like an open book. In fact, he wanted Shinra to know just how much his betrayal hurt. "YOU BETRAYED ME!" he roared and pulled Shinra up before he roughly pushed him towards the door. "Get out."

"Wait, let me explain myself!" Shinra pleaded, but Izaya's stony expression told him that he was not in the mood for any excuses.

"I won't tell you again... get out," Izaya repeated as he pulled out a switchblade and flicked it open before pointing it in Shinra's direction. Seeing how the doctor was frozen on the spot, he sauntered towards him, the man only reacting the moment he raised the weapon and pressed it to his neck.

Shinra flinched and fought to swallow the lump in his throat as he gazed into Izaya's crazed expression. "I'm so―"

"SHUT UP!" Izaya roared, the fury burning from deep within almost setting his eyes aflame. "I don't want to hear your excuses. You would not hesitate to throw me under the bus for Celty's sake," he hissed, the hand holding the switchblade trembling badly enough to make a few superficial cuts on the already bruises neck of the man he once considered to be his only friend.

Shinra was too stunned to come up with a reply, so he opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found the right words. "I didn't know she had bullied you into telling her what happened."

Enraged, Izaya harshly fisted his left hand into Shinra's hair and leaned closer until their foreheads were almost touching. "No one can make me do anything I don't want to... well, no one besides Shizu-chan, but you already know that." Shinra tried to pull away, but Izaya tightened his fingers into the brown hair and held him there. "What? Are you mad?" he asked, smirking, wanting to see what Shinra would do next, but when the doctor only glared at him, he continued. "I wouldn't have told her had she not insisted, but I won't deny that I enjoyed her distress when I told her how her precious Shizuo, whom she'd been defending the whole time, was nothing more than a rapist who would go as far as to fuck his archenemy just to teach him a lesson."

"You're the one who betrayed me!" Shinra snapped and grabbed Izaya by the front of his T-shirt. "You knew I didn't want her to know what her best friend had done, and yet you told her anyway!"

Vicious laughter spilled at Shinra's words and Izaya shook his head and backed away before he pocketed the switchblade. Abruptly, he stopped laughing and glowered at him, the man almost shrinking back from his glare. "You betrayed me first by making me believe that you cared about me. I would've preferred indifference over false affection," he said in the coldest tone he could muster before his eyes fell on his laptop and he moved to sit down in his desk chair. "I'm busy, so if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone."

"I do care about you," Shinra confessed, but Izaya was typing away at his laptop, clearly dismissing him from his presence. "Please don't do this," he tried again, but he received no answer. Realizing that no matter what he said or did, Izaya wouldn't listen to him, he turned on his heels and headed for the door, his hand tightening around the handle when he heard a cold voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"You were the only person I would've never hurt."

Shinra barely stopped himself from running back and begging Izaya for forgiveness, knowing full well that it'd be pointless. Still, he felt the need to tell him something before leaving. "You should've known that I would do anything for Celty." Izaya didn't say anything, so Shinra walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him, his heart sinking at the thought of their broken friendship.

***

Celty was watching TV when she heard the door open. Reluctantly, she got up and went to greet Shinra, already typing her welcome home message before she even reached the hallway, but her PDA almost slipped from her hands the moment she was met with the sight of a bruised and injured Kishitani Shinra. [WHO DID THIS TO YOU??] she furiously typed, the small device almost breaking from how hard she was squeezing it in her fury.

Shinra lowered his head and awkwardly scratched his nape. "An old friend," he answered, and in the next moment the PDA was shoved in his face, so close to his eyes that he had to back away to be able to read the text. "No one important, so can we please not talk about it?"

[He broke your arm!]

"Actually, no, he didn't," he said while struggling to take off his jacket. "I lost my balance and it broke when I fell, I swear!" When he saw that she didn't look convinced, he snatched the PDA from her hands and pulled her into a hug. "I missed you so much!" he chirped in a cheerful tone in an attempt to distract her. Immediately, Celty tried to pull away, but Shinra only held on tighter, refusing to let go of the woman for whom he'd lost his best friend. "I really need this right now," he said softly, and he couldn't have been more grateful to Celty when she wrapped her arms around his back and nestled into his embrace. "Don't worry about it, I'll be fine. The fracture will heal, and then I'll be as good as new." From the way she was trembling, he could tell that she wanted to hurt whoever had attacked him, but he had no intention of telling her anything. The last thing he needed was for Celty to confront Shizuo. She was strong, but so was Shizuo, and he couldn't risk her getting hurt. He didn't exactly think that he would attack her, but he had no doubt that Shizuo would defend himself if need be, just like he'd done earlier that day. "Can you help me out of this jacket?" he said after a while when her trembling finally subsided.

Reluctantly, Celty pulled away, took his hand, and then led him to the bathroom where she could take off his rain-soaked clothes, realizing that he might catch a cold if he stayed in them for much longer. Her eyes fell on his bruised jaw and neck and she felt fury burning her from deep within, like a fire igniting the anger she felt towards whoever had done such a thing to the man she came to love.

"One second," Shinra said before he gave her back the PDA and turned on the hot water so that he could take a bath. "I'm freezing."

[Raise your arms,] she ordered, his surprised expression telling her that he hadn't expected to get help with the rest of his clothes. [I'm not going to run away when you need me the most.]

Shinra's smile grew wider and he raised his arms. "Are you sure? I don't want you to feel uncomfortable over something like this, especially when I can do it myself. Granted, it'll take me a while, but I'll get it done eventually." She typed her answer with conviction, and Shinra couldn't stop smiling at how cute she was when she was both so determined and flustered.

[I can do it!] Taking the last step towards him, she grabbed the lower part of his T-shirt and slowly pulled it up, revealing more and more pale skin. By the time it was completely off, her hands were quivering, and she quickly dropped it into the sink before coming back to him, that all-knowing smirk on his face further proving that Shinra could always guess what she was thinking, and what she was thinking at that moment was how could a doctor who didn't exercise much look so good, the lean body and elegantly defined muscles almost hypnotizing her into touching that milky skin.

"I can take care of the rest." He tried to spare her the embarrassment, but the way her shoulders moved told him that she was shaking her head. "Celty is so good to me, I don't even know how to tha―" he started, but the rest of the words got caught in his throat when she grabbed his pants and lowered the zipper before she unbuttoned them and tugged them down and off his legs. He shivered each time her fingers brushed against his skin, and he hoped that he wouldn't get too excited over something as simple as getting undressed by the love of his life. He was quite shameless at times, but getting a boner in front of Celty when she was just trying to help seemed like a bad idea.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't even see her move, and he jumped in surprise when her fingers brushed past his navel. Instinctively, he grabbed the waistband of his underwear, his face going red at the thought of Celty seeing him completely naked. "I c-can do t-this!" he stuttered pathetically, expecting her to at least turn around and give him some privacy, but when she folded her arms in front of her chest, he stared in amazement, trying to think of all sorts of disgusting things so that he wouldn't get it up at the thought of the woman he loved seeing him in all of his naked glory. "I had no idea that you loved to see me suffer," he said with a smile on his face while he took off his underwear and stepped into the tub, resting the broken arm on the edge of the tub so that it wouldn't get wet.

[I don't like to see you suffer,] Celty typed on her PDA and showed him the message when she noticed how red his face was. Then again, she was certain that her face would've turned red as well if she had her head, the image of a naked Shinra turning her on a lot more than she wanted to admit.

Shinra pouted and raised his knees, already starting to feel the beginning of a vicious boner. Notnownotnownotnow, he kept screaming inside his head while Celty retrieved a sponge and proceeded to scrub his shoulders and back, his pulse increasing the moment she dipped a hand into the water to wash his abdomen. "ICANDOITMYSELF!" he screeched and backed away further into the tub, his heart speeding up and his body burning with desire. "I'll d-do the rest!" he said as he turned around, barely stifling a moan when he accidentally brushed his fingers against his growing erection. Luckily, Celty heeded his request and went back to gently massaging his stiff shoulders. A pleasurable sigh slipped past his lips and he relaxed into her touch even though he wanted nothing more than to wrap his hand around his erection and relieve the painful ache between his legs. His head still hurt, but the growing heat coiling around in his abdomen was distracting enough to almost make him forget about it. By the time Celty was done, his member was rock hard, and so he didn't even dare turn around, feeling thoroughly embarrassed with himself. "Thank you for your help, but I can do the rest. Wait for me outside, okay? I'll be right there," he tried, but the PDA shoved in his face from the Dullahan behind him made him cringe.

[You don't look very well.]

"I'm fine, really. I just need a few minutes," he said in an embarrassingly high-pitched tone. He held his breath as Celty typed the next message and he almost cried in relief when he read it.

[Okay, I'll be outside. Call me if you need me.]

He frantically nodded and waited for Celty to get out and close the door behind her before he slumped in relief against the edge of the tub, his head hanging limply for a few moments before he grabbed the sponge and washed his lower half with a trembling hand. Mindful of his broken arm and stitched up head, he turned on the shower and leaned against the wall tiles, all the while making sure that the minimum amount of water got on his injuries. His whole body was burning, especially his middle half, and as he grabbed his member with a quivering hand, he bit into his lower lip in an attempt to stop the pleasurable noise threatening to slip past his burning lips, fearing that any sound he made would reverberate off the walls. As an accomplice to what he was doing, his mind bombarded him with fantasies of a naked Celty, his hand mindlessly increasing its speed to the point that it was slightly painful, but the searing need to come was so strong that he didn't even care anymore.

He imagined himself squeezing those perfect breasts, and the image of Celty spread before him made him come undone. He almost blacked out when the orgasm rippled throughout his body and he leaned his forehead against the cold tiles, his ragged breath so loud in his ears that he wondered if Celty could hear him from outside the bathroom. With his legs feeling like they were made out of cotton, he allowed the water to pelt his heated body for only a few more moments before he turned off the shower and slid down the wall and back into the bathtub, his headache momentarily forgotten as he basked in the afterglow of a mind-blowing orgasm for a while, until he heard a knock on the door and he jerked in surprise, his slouched body straightening and turning stiff.

"I'll be right out," he assured Celty, and even though he wanted nothing more than to pass out right there, he forced himself to get out of the tub and dry his body with a towel, the thing almost slipping through his fingers when he realized that he had no clothes to change into. "Celty darling, could you bring me some clothes?" He heard the sound of footsteps moving away and he wiped the fog off the mirror and stared at his reflection for a few moments, his face still red from his earlier activities. His fingers tightened around the edge of the sink and he laughed, thinking that he should've gotten injured a lot sooner if that was what it took for Celty to take such good care of him. He was still upset about his fight with Izaya, but he decided to put that aside for a while and enjoy this new development in his and Celty's relationship. Slowly, he unclenched his fingers and turned around, wanting to go and wait by the door for his clothes, not expecting Celty to simply walk in with no care in the world. Without thinking, he covered himself with his hand, his face growing hot once again. "You could've slipped them to me instead of coming in yourself," he said, his tone sounding a little strained.

Celty passed him the clothes so that she could type. [If I can't even take care of the man I love when he's injured, then what is the point of loving someone?]

Shinra's expression softened and his heart picked up speed again, a pleasant warmth spreading throughout his chest. "I love you too," he said with a smile on his face. He could tell that she was flustered and slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing, but that made him appreciate her help even more. He didn't protest when Celty took the clothes and proceeded to dress him, both of them enjoying the companionable silence. It wasn't late, but he was tired and the vicious headache was back, so he took a few more painkillers before heading for the bedroom. "The cast is uncomfortable," he said before he lay down in bed. "I'm going to get arm braces tomorrow... you should come wit―" He never got to finish, his jaw falling when Celty's full body suit changed into a night gown and she slipped under the covers and into his arms. "Ah, Celty, you're so cruel, I hope you know that." Her shoulders jerked in silent laughter and he wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her closer, a satisfied sigh slipping past his lips at having the woman of his dreams in his bed.

[Get some sleep!] she ordered, and then squirmed for a few moments until she found a comfortable position.

"Good night," Shinra said just before he closer his eyes, a satisfied smile adorning his face. I love you! I love you! I love you, he kept repeating inside his head until exhaustion caught up with him and he finally fell asleep.

Notes:

astroenergy and I have written Among The Ruins, which is a crossover fic between Mutual Consent and Blind Fury. If you're reading both fics, then you might want to check our collaboration. Some of the events that happen in it will be mentioned here and there in the next few chapters.

Chapter 37: No Leaf Clover

"Aren't you going to tell me what happened? You haven't said a word ever since we ran into Orihara Izaya," Tom complained in a slightly irritated tone.

Shizuo slowly turned his head and gave him a confused look. "What?"

Tom gestured to a more secluded place where they could talk in peace and Shizuo followed without protest. "You've been acting really strange since yesterday afternoon." Instead of replying, Shizuo seemed to ignore him, preoccupying himself with fishing the lighter and the cigarette pack from his pants pocket and lighting one up. "Could you please just answer my question?" he snapped, feeling as though he was at wit's end.

Biting hard into the cigarette, Shizuo glared at him. He was far more disturbed by the dream he'd had the night before than by his run-in with Izaya even though their chase had almost ended with him punching the bastard in the face for trying to rile him up. He'd been awake for a few hours, and yet he still couldn't stop thinking how real the dream had felt. Slowly, he raised a hand and brushed his fingers across his face, as if to make sure it hadn't been real. "I don't want to talk about it right now," Shizuo finally mumbled when he realized that his friend was still glaring at him.

"You never do! Something happened between you and Orihara Izaya, I'm sure of it." He lit up a cigarette as well before continuing, his friend's rigid stance telling him that he was on the right track. "He said that you only broke his sink this time around, which suggests that you've broken more than that before, like maybe his bones. You caught him, didn't you?" The way Shizuo tensed at his words made Tom think that he was on the right track, so he continued. "It would explain his absence from Ikebukuro, and also why you started acting strange around the same time he disappeared." Sighing, he leaned against the wall. "You obviously hate him, but at the same same time you don't like violence, so I can see why you'd feel guilty if you had been too rough on him. You're a good person, Shizuo, and it looks like he's doing fine, so stop beating yourself over it." Disquieted laughter reached his ears and he felt a shiver run down his spine at the sound, his friend's crazed expression making him instinctively push back into the wall.

"You don't know anything," Shizuo snarled, snapping the cigarette in two and hurling it to the ground before viciously stomping on it. "Stop telling me that I'm a good person, because I'm not. The more you tell me this, the worse I feel. Can't you see that?"

Tom was too shocked to say anything, so he nodded slowly. When he found his voice again, he felt the need to apologize. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Shizuo immediately regretted his outburst. If anything, he should've been grateful that someone cared enough to ask what was wrong. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped like that." Leaning against the wall as well, he pulled out another cigarette. "I don't like it when people tell me that I'm a good person."

"I'm sorry, Shizuo, I really am," Tom apologized once again. "I don't think you're a bad person, that's all."

"I'm worse than you can imagine," Shizuo said, blankly staring ahead. "What I've done to him is unforgivable."

Tom canted his head, eyes falling on Shizuo's sad expression. "I can't help but wonder what it is that you've done."

"Something terrible," Shizuo confessed. "A good person would never do what I've done."

Tom pushed himself away from the wall before he moved in front of him and placed a hand on top of a tense shoulder. "You could've killed him for what he's done to you over the years, but you didn't. Isn't that enough?"

Shizuo lowered his head, his eyes now fixed on an invisible spot on the ground. "I think he would've preferred death―" he said without thinking, his head snapping back up, wide eyes staring at Tom's worried expression when he realized what he'd just said. "I shouldn't have said that! Fuck!" he fretted, teeth grinding hard against each other.

Tom's brows furrowed in confusion and he pulled his hand back. "Whatever it is that you've done, you're not dead yet, so it couldn't have been as―" He never got to finish though, Shizuo's broken laughter startling him. "Hey..." he spoke softly, but his friend was back to staring at the ground and contemplating what Tom had just told him.

Shizuo knew that Izaya had something horrible in store for him, but he couldn't even begin to guess what could be worse than what he'd already tried to do. A shiver ran down his spine at the memory and he shuddered, his body going cold at the thought that Izaya might still be thinking of using Kasuka to get revenge on him. He felt his heartbeat quicken, but then he remembered Izaya's words and he struggled to fight the nausea threatening to overtake him. He had no choice but to trust him. "Let's just get back to work. I don't like to think about it, you know?" he nearly pleaded.

Tom nodded and he was about to inform him where they'd have to go next when a man stopped beside them instead of walking by. "Can I help you?" The man however ignored him and instead grabbed Ikebukuro's beast by the arm. Tom saw his friend's eyebrow twitch and he moved backwards with a sigh, already knowing what would happen next. It was right when the man had just finished asking Shizuo to come with him in broken Japanese that he was punched square in the face and knocked unconscious. "I can't help but wonder why he would ever think that it was a good idea to mess with you..." Tom mused right before he shoved cold hands into his pockets and proceeded to walk away, Shizuo shrugging before following after him.

Hours went by as the two of them worked in silence, this time Tom leaving him alone with his thoughts. Shizuo couldn't have been more grateful, especially when he could barely focus on the job. Luckily, he didn't have to; all he needed to do was to threaten or beat up guys here and there whenever Tom wasn't able to talk them into paying their debts. Shizuo's thoughts kept drifting to the other Izaya he'd met in his dream, the man's words haunting him more than most of the things the real Izaya had ever told him. He knew that Izaya was damaged, but was he as damaged as he'd been led to believe by the apparition in his dream? Such were the thoughts going through his mind as he was walking down a side-street to their next target when he felt a sting at the back of his neck. He raised a hand to swat away whatever it was that had stung him, but instead of an insect, he pulled back a needle. "What the..."

Tom's eyes widened in apprehension. "What's going on?"

Shizuo tilted his head to the side for a few moments before his eyes drifted to his friend's curious gaze. "I'm not su―" he started, but before he got a chance to finish he felt another sting to the nape. "What the hell?" he growled and turned around, only to see a man with a gun in his hand shoot another needle in his direction. He tried to dodge it but he was too slow, the thing going through his T-shirt and burying into his chest. "What's your goddam problem?" he hissed and pulled the needle out before he let it drop to the ground with a trembling hand. He could tell that something was wrong by how sluggish his movements were, his knees going weak enough to make him wonder if he could even reach the man before collapsing. He tried to take a step forward, but Tom was already rushing towards the attacker.

Unfortunately, the other man was much better than either of them had expected, so Tom didn't even manage to land a hit before he was viciously punched in the stomach. Watching his friend double-over in agony spurred Shizuo into action, so he rushed forward with his fist raised, ignoring the weakness in his limbs, ready to punch the attacker into oblivion. The man easily dodged his fist, but instead of fighting back, the other moved away, as if knowing that getting close to him would be extremely dangerous.

"No fight; come," the foreigner said in broken Japanese, but Shizuo was already seeing red and he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from going after him even if he wanted. He tried to punch and kick him, but the man kept evading his attacks. The worrisome thing was that it wasn't just because Shizuo's body was far too weak for him to move at his usual speed, but also because the man obviously knew how to fight really well. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem for Shizuo, but with the drug slowing him down, he was practically defenseless, just like that time when Shinra had injected him with something that made him lose the ability to stand. "What the hell do you want, bastard?" he roared as he pulled back his fist from the wall he'd just hit, not at all surprised when he noticed that his punch hadn't left a small crater behind. He got no answer though, and he saw Tom right as he was about to attack the other man, only to get stopped by another stranger in a suit. Two more appeared soon after, and Shizuo couldn't deny that he was worried about being surrounded by a bunch of people who were obviously trying to get him.

He was used to fighting street gangs, not trained men wearing expensive suits, and he let a growl slip past his lips when the thought that Izaya might have sent them passed through his head. His eyes drifted to Tom who was fighting one of the men and he couldn't help but worry that his friend might get hurt because of him. "Tell Izaya that he doesn't need to do something like this to capture me. I would've went there willingly," he assured them, but instead of getting a reply, the three men were upon him, landing punches and kicks that Shizuo couldn't dodge. He managed to land a few hits too, but seeing how none of his opponents were sent flying through the air, things didn't look too good for him. The more time passed, the weaker he felt, and when one of the men grabbed him and viciously banged his head into the hard surface of the wall, his vision went black. Immediately, Shizuo felt the ground shift beneath him and he realized that he must've collapsed once his vision came back and he was staring at the sky above. He let his head drop to the side and that's when he saw Tom struggling to get up just as one of the man was raising a fist to punch him yet again.

"S-stop," he croaked, "I won't f-fight anymore," and he felt relief when he saw the man lower his fist and move away from Tom.

"No... you have to f-fight!" Tom encouraged him, but Shizuo couldn't let his friend get hurt because of him.

"I'll be f-fine," he assured him even though he doubted that he would ever see him again. He figured that Izaya had probably gotten sick of the games and finally decided to end his life. He tried to push himself off the ground but he couldn't even do as much anymore, so when two of the men grabbed him by the arms and hauled him up, he didn't even try to fight. Tom refused to give up though, and Shizuo cringed when he saw his friend's final struggles before he was knocked unconscious by a vicious kick to the head. Anger flowed through his veins and he glared at the men around him, and yet there was nothing he could do to avenge Tom nor stop one of them from injecting more of that substance into his neck, his body going weaker and weaker until he finally lost consciousness.

***

Izaya was in the process of teasing Namie for the umpteenth time about her little brother Seiji as a way to distract himself from thoughts of his fight with Shinra when he heard one of his phones ring. His eyes widened in curiosity when he saw the name and he put the phone to his ear before answering it in a cheerful voice. "Ueda-san, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

"I've called to inform you that your life is no longer in danger. I've made sure of that."

Izaya's fingers tensed around the phone at the memory of the knife piercing his back, a small part of him seeing the events of that day as being the catalyst to his fight with Shinra. "Are you certain of that?"

"Yes, I am certain."

"I'm glad to hear that. Now, if there's nothing else..."

"Wait, Orihara-san, there's one more thing."

Izaya nervously swished in his desk chair from side to side, something in the man's tone telling him that he wouldn't like what Ueda had to say next. "What is it?" he finally inquired in a neutral voice once he got his emotions under control.

"I have a... gift for you. Is there any way I can convince you to meet me?"

Izaya stopped swiveling in his chair and instead nervously tightened his grip around the switchblade in his pants pocket.

"Orihara-san, I assure you, I have no ill-intentions towards you," Ueda continued. "If anything, I am extremely grateful for your help, and as such, I would like to express my gratitude with a gift that I am certain you will enjoy."

"In that case, I accept," Izaya answered, his curiosity getting the best of him. He wrote down the address where they were supposed to meet and got up. "I'll see you later, Namie-san," he chirped and waved good bye as he picked up his jacket and walked out of the apartment.

He had to admit that Ueda unnerved him, but he knew about the man's reputation and he doubted Ueda would kill him even if the address where they were supposed to meet at was a warehouse of some sorts. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Fishing out his phone from the right pocket, he called out a member of the Dragon Zombies and told him to gather the others and meet him there. He made sure to warn them to stay hidden and to not interfere unless he called them out. With that taken care of, he called a cab and patiently stared out the car's window at the lively city and the fascinating humans inhabiting it. They went about their lives as though nothing had changed while everything in Izaya's life was different. His only consolation was that his beloved humans did not know what had happened to their god.

Once the cab stopped in front of the warehouse, he paid the driver and got out of the car, a smirk plastered all over his face at the thought of how good the Dragon Zombies were at hiding. He set the phone to call their numbers at the push of a button before he confidently made his way towards the door where a man was waiting for him. "I'm here to meet your boss. My name is Orihara Izaya." He watched the man nod before he turned around and pushed the heavy door.

There were a number of things he expected to find as he briskly walked in, but a bloody Shizuo sitting on a chair and surrounded by three men with guns pointed at his head was not one of them. He smirked viciously despite himself as their eyes met and he confidently walked in as though he owned the place.

"Welcome," Ueda told him with a neutral expression on his face.

Izaya didn't answer and instead paced around a miserable-looking Shizuo, thoroughly enjoying the sight of the trapped beast. He felt a surge of power as he watched him, knowing that he could end his life with a simple command; no matter how much of a monster Shizuo was, not even he could survive a bullet to the head. "I'm guessing this is my gift, yes?" he inquired as he turned his head in the businessman's direction, at the same time realizing that Shizuo must've thought it was his doing, a conclusion he had reached when he heard a surprised noise slip past the brute's bloody lips. Ueda smiled at him, but something about that smile unsettled Izaya.

"Indeed it is. Would you like to kill him yourself, or should one of my men do it for you? You don't have to worry about the body. My men will take care of it," he assured him and then ordered one of his men to hand Izaya a gun.

Shizuo, who until then had stayed silent, let out a growl before trying to get up, only to stop and allow his still weak body to drop back on the chair the moment the armed men moved in closer. "Izaya, I don't know who this bastard is, but you're the only one I'll allow to kill me," he hissed between clenched teeth as his eyes momentarily flickered to the gun being offered to Izaya before his gaze fell on brown-red orbs. He had no doubt that Izaya would refuse the gun, and he almost laughed when the flea he seemed to know so well waved the man away. He was certain that if Izaya were to kill him, he would use his switchblades, and judging by the way he regarded him with an invincible smile on his face, he knew that the insect was seriously considering Ueda's offer.

Izaya didn't know if Shizuo could tell, but he'd greatly enjoyed to hear him outright state that he would be the only one permitted to end his existence. Even after everything that happened between them, he thought it was amusing that Ikebukuro's beast would gladly jump chest first into a knife if Izaya would be the one holding it and he almost found it hard to believe there had been a time when he couldn't even stand the thought of Shizuo regretting his actions. The memory of waking up at Shinra's apartment was still painful, and he remember the dread he'd felt at the thought of his worst enemy pitying him.

His opinion on the matter was no longer the same though, and as he watched the bleeding man that he so hated, he couldn't think of a worse outcome than Shizuo feeling no remorse and instead bragging about how he had succeeded in breaking him to pieces. He fought not to shudder at his own thoughts as he stared into the honey-brown eyes that showed great remorse, and when he realized that he was losing himself in them, he tore his gaze away from the wounded beast, his eyes falling on Ueda. "Shizu-chan is not a big threat. There is no need for me to eliminate him." He then turned his head and looked at Shizuo again. "At least not yet anyway," he admitted softly.

"My apologies, Orihara-san. I thought you would appreciate my gift, considering what this man has done to you."

Izaya felt the blood freeze in his veins. He slowly turned to Ueda, unease raising the hairs on the back of his neck at the same time that he felt his knees turn to jelly. It took everything in his power just to keep standing, the man's pitying look making him want to flick open both his switchblades and bury them deep into the Ueda's eyes so that he could never look at him the same way again. Fighting against the nausea, he forced a smile on his face, but his tone still sounded a little strained when he spoke. "I am not sure what you're referring to."

Ueda's gaze fell on Shizuo who looked like a deer trapped in the headlights. "This man forced himself on you," he stated as he glared at him with animosity.

The stifling silence stretched for a long time until Izaya's laughter finally resonated throughout the warehouse and he made a show by grabbing his side and pretending that it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard in his entire life even though on the inside he was shedding tears of blood. "That's insane!" he exclaimed once he was done laughing, and as he stared at Ueda, he put on that mask which was the Izaya before Shizuo had dragged him into that alley and turned his world upside down. "Ueda-san, I believe there's a misunderstanding here. No such thing happened," he assured him with a smile on his face and a casual flick of his hand.

Ueda's eyes narrowed for a moment before he sighed and lit up a cigarette. "As you might have figured out by now, those men sent to kill you were hired by my brothers. I wanted to make sure they would leave you alone, so I had my men bring them to me so that I could have a talk with them. That's when I found out about what Heiwajima-san here did to you."

"They lied!" Izaya rushed to answer, immediately regretting his outburst when he realized that denying it so vehemently was like admitting to it being true. He took a deep breath and smiled brightly, a contrast to the darkness he felt consuming him from within. "They must've been really angry to invent such a ridiculous story. Nothing like that happened. In fact, Shizu-chan was the one who saved my life back then."

Ueda shook his head. "They overheard the two of you speaking, and they had no reason to lie."

Izaya's face was as white as a sheet even though he was smiling, his facade crumbling under the knowledge that so many people knew what had happened to him. It was obvious that denying it would be pointless, but as his eyes met Shizuo's, an insane thought passed through his head. Slowly, he turned towards the businessman, his smile not as fake as it had been mere moments before. "Ah, I see," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "I believe I now know what happened." He then turned towards the injured beast with a conspiratorial smile. "They misunderstood us, right, Shizu-chan?" He was worried that the protozoan might be stupid enough to say something he shouldn't, but luckily, he seemed to have gotten the message because he was keeping his mouth shut.

Izaya's attention switched to Ueda again and he hoped against all hope that the man would believe his lies. "I was merely telling Shizu-chan here how he'd been too rough on me that day." Raising a hand, he half-covered his mouth in a mock-display of trying to keep Shizuo from overhearing his words. "He's such a beast in bed," he expertly lied, trying not to worry too much even after hearing Shizuo's sharp intake of breath. "Shizu-chan and I have been sleeping together for a while now. You can say that we needed a less... destructive way to spend our energy on."

The businessman's eyes shifted from one to the other, the confusion in his eyes telling Izaya that Ueda was thinking he might've made a mistake but that at the same time he was still skeptical about the whole thing. Izaya inwardly cursed and walked over to Shizuo, narrowing the distance between them and hoping that the brute would just play along because having Ueda believe they were sleeping together was far better than the alternative. The thought of others knowing what had happened to him was so terrifying that he didn't hesitate as he sat on Shizuo's lap and hooked his arms around the beast's neck regardless of the abhorrence he felt for him. "Shizu-chan looks best when he's covered in blood," he teased, and as he willed himself to move closer, he could tell that the beast was barely restraining himself from roughly pushing him away.

Shizuo could obviously take an educated guess as to where things were going, and as much he didn't want to do it, he had to admit that Izaya's vicious glare was far more terrifying than any guns pointed at his head. He fought with everything he had to not flinch when their lips touched, knowing that no matter how bad it was for him, it had to be a thousand times worse for Izaya. He was starting to wonder if this was a dream too, but then the kiss turned wild and Izaya moaned into it as though he was enjoying it all. It was strange to hear that sound coming from Izaya mouth, but he knew that he too had to put on a good show if only for the flea's sake. He wrapped a possessive arm around Izaya's waist and grabbed a fistful of raven locks, their kiss turning hungrier by the second. Back then he hadn't kissed Izaya, but now that he was doing it, he couldn't deny that he was somewhat enjoying it regardless of everything that happened between them.

Monster! a voice echoed in his mind, images of what he had done to the man unable to leave him. Monster! Monster!! MONSTER!!! Soon enough he found himself desperately wanting to pull away, but he couldn't do it because he owed Izaya at least this much after almost killing him in the back of some dirty alley. The fingers in the raven hair tightened and he tilted Izaya's head to the side so that he could kiss the pale neck instead of the man's lips. To the eyes of the men around them, it'd still look like they were making out, but at least it'd be less torturous for the trembling creature in his lap. Izaya wasn't showing it, but the soft tremors he felt told Shizuo more than he ever wanted to know. His lips latched onto the pale neck and he heard Izaya moan again, the rushing sound of his quickening pulse mingling with it and forming an awful tune in his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered low enough so that only Izaya could hear him before he kissed his jaw and squeezed his ass. If that wasn't good enough for the rich bastard to believe him, then he didn't know what was.

"Mah, mah, Shizu-chan, have some patience until we get to your apartment," Izaya chirped and playfully smacked away Shizuo's hand before he got up, fighting with everything he had to not collapse right then and there. It took all the energy he had just to keep himself from shaking like a scared animal and he almost couldn't believe that his voice still sounded so clear when he could almost hear his teeth chattering. Judging by Ueda's expression, the man had most likely bought the act, but he still licked Shizuo's blood off his lips and smirked at the man with a triumphant look on his face. "I would prefer you didn't kill my lover."

"I'm... I'm sorry." Ueda then turned towards Shizuo and lowered his head. "I apologize, Heiwajima-san."

"Don't worry about it," Shizuo mumbled as he got up, still feeling slightly dizzy from the drug they had injected into his bloodstream. He was about to take a step forward but Izaya wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped him. He knew there had to be a reason for it, so he chose to remain silent as he stood there and waited for Izaya to finish his talk with the man.

"I must confess that I am quite upset by what you did here today, Ueda-san, but I am willing to let it go if your men lower their guns and you all forget this meeting ever happened," Izaya offered with the last bit of his strength.

Ueda nodded and gestured to his men to put away their weapons. "I've made a grave mistake today," he reluctantly admitted.

"Let's just say you owe me one," Izaya suggested and he couldn't have been more grateful when the other man nodded.

Ueda turned around, his men following after him. "Until next time, Orihara-san."

Izaya immediately pulled out his phone with trembling fingers and sent a message to the Dragon Zombies in which he told them to leave because he no longer needed them.

"We should go too," Shizuo grumbled, but Izaya tightened the grip around his wrist. Shizuo was almost too afraid to look at the pale face, so instead he focused his attention on the men walking out of the warehouse, knowing that the moment the door closed, all hell would break loose.

Chapter 38: Of Dream and Drama

Shizuo felt the air shift beside him before his wrist was even released and he instinctively jumped away, expecting the man to thrust a switchblade into his flesh. He swiftly spun around, eyes widening in disbelief when he was met with the sight of a rather miserable-looking Izaya sitting in a squatting position and gripping the raven locks of his lowered head with quivering hands. A soft sound of surprise slipped past his lips, the eerily familiar sight making his stomach churn. For a fraction of a second, he thought this too was a dream, but he immediately dismissed the idea when he remembered with absolute certainty there had been no scar beneath Izaya's lower lip.

The other Izaya's words echoed in his mind, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ve scarred his mind enough,” and he staggered backwards; whatever was happening before his very eyes wasn't supposed to happen and he refused to acknowledge it. The flea he knew would not under any circumstance break down in front of his most hated enemy. Izaya was supposed to mock and taunt him even while in pain, and yet reality seemed to have slapped Shizuo in the face with a completely opposite picture of what he'd expected from the man. Judging by the sounds coming from the smaller form, Izaya was having a hard time breathing, and much like in the dream he had the night before, Shizuo took a step forward and raised a hand, the instinct to comfort the quivering creature vying for dominance and eventually overriding the common sense that told him the aggressor was not supposed to console the victim even if this time around he hadn't exactly assaulted him.

As expected, Izaya recoiled from the touch as though he'd been burned, losing his balance and pathetically falling on his backside, a violent shudder racing through his body and leaving him trembling a lot harder than before. He didn't dare raise his head, but he could feel Shizuo's intense gaze on him and he was certain that Ikebukuro's beast was enjoying the show. How could he not? Shizuo still hated him, and no matter how much the monster kept apologizing, Izaya knew that at least a small part of him had to be rejoicing at the sight of him looking so miserable and defeated. Shame―like he hadn't felt since that day―overwhelmed him and he felt disgusted with himself for allowing the man who had done this to him to witness his disgraceful fall.

As though the memories of Shizuo thrusting into his beaten and bloody body weren't bad enough, now he also had to deal with the ones where he was making out with the beast who had humiliated him in the worst possible way. He had no choice but to moan for a man who had made him feel nothing but pain, for a beast with inhuman strength who had relished his agony and laughed at it; all of it just to keep people from knowing their ignominious secret. The kiss had been a nightmare in itself, but what had triggered whatever it was that was happening to him was Shizuo's hand on his backside, those cruel fingers digging into his flesh making him feel powerless all over again. Judging by the beast's behavior in general, he was pretty sure that Shizuo wouldn't attack him like that again, and yet, as he stared at his trembling knees, he still couldn't make them stop because his body was not quite catching up to his mind. He weakly raised a hand and tried to get up, but he couldn't get his legs to move. He wanted Shizuo to disappear from there or for the monster to at least forget ever witnessing such a humiliating display, but no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn't magically erase it from Shizuo's mind. The only thing left was to kill him, but Izaya had no intention of doing that just yet.

"I'm so sorry..." he heard Shizuo apologize, and no matter how much Izaya wanted to throw him a defiant and mocking glare, he couldn't even raise his head to look at him, not when all he could remember were cold hands, vicious thrusts, and the disgusting breath smelling of tobacco, as well as those cruel words spoken in his ear by the wild and merciless beast doing its best to make him bleed. Instead, he opened his mouth to say something, to tell Shizuo to go fuck himself or to shove his apologies where the sun didn't shine, but his lips and throat were too dry and he couldn't find his voice. If anything, it felt as though his strength had been sucked right out of his body through that disgusting kiss, and no matter how much he fought to stop the shivers wracking his frame, his body was not listening to him and his teeth wouldn't stop chattering. Even his breathing was too loud, and it formed a horrible tune in his ears as it mingled with the sounds of his wildly beating heart and chattering teeth. The tears prickling at the corners of his eyes stung, but he refused to let them fall, especially when the man who was responsible for his utter destruction was standing right in front of him. His tongue felt like sandpaper and it hurt to swallow, but he kept struggling to speak until he finally found his voice. "You m-must be enjoy...enjoying this," he uttered brokenly, hating how meek his voice sounded. The beast's low growl made him flinch, his own pathetic reaction bringing with it a new wave of shame to his already bruised ego.

"I'm not enjoying this," Shizuo replied through clenched teeth, the whole situation reminding him too much of the encounter with the other Izaya. It was like the dream had been a prophecy of some sort and that unnerved him more than he ever thought possible. He wasn't a hypocrite to say that he cared about Izaya's well-being, but when the man he had hurt so deeply was yet again a shaking mess because of him, he couldn't help but drown in guilt. The nefarious chuckle he heard next made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he took a step backwards on instinct, hoping that Izaya would not lash out at him because of what he'd been forced to do.

"But isn't this what you wanted?" Izaya inquired in a spiteful voice.

Even though Izaya couldn't see him, Shizuo still shook his head in denial. "I stopped wanting it ever since our eyes met right after I... after..." but he couldn't finish, the memory of those wounded bbrown-red eyes staring at him in terror almost making him want to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, regardless of the fact that Izaya was his enemy and the man who had tried to get him killed before; it didn't even matter that the Informant was a horrible human being or that Izaya deserved some sort of punishment for his sins. None of that mattered when he could hardly live after what he'd done. Izaya wasn't saying anything, the man remaining eerily silent instead of insulting him.

"Hey, are you... okay?" Shizuo reluctantly asked, but he was not deigned with an answer and because of that he didn't know what to do. Taking this Izaya into his arms was like asking to get stabbed, and he quickly dismissed the suicidal thought when he realized how insane it sounded. He nervously ran a hand through his hair and approached him, breathing in relief when the man didn't crawl away from him. He slowly extended his hand and offered it to him, all the while wondering why everything felt so damn awkward. He surmised that it had to be because of their earlier kiss, and without thinking, he raised his other hand and ran a finger across his lips. If things had been different between them, if they had been together, it would've most likely ended just as badly; that's what kind of monster Heiwajima Shizuo was. He pulled back his left hand and focused on Izaya again, waiting for the man to react.

Ever so slowly, Izaya raised his head, following the contour of the arm offered to him until their eyes finally locked. No matter how much he wanted to say that he understood Ikebukuro's beast, he couldn't. Shizuo was supposed to laugh at his misery, and yet the stupid beast was looking at him as though he was the one in pain. Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits before moving back to the hand being offered to him, a laughable gesture coming from the man who had left him to die after doing despicable things to him. At least most of the trembling had ceased, but Izaya's hands still shook with soft tremors and he slowly tucked them beneath his arms to hide them from his enemy's view. He expected the dumb protozoan to give up, but the idiot was still standing there waiting for him to take his hand. He tried to hold it in, but the laughter still spilled past his lips, empty and broken just like how he felt on the inside. "Why is the beast who trampled on a god trying to help him up?" Izaya asked in a flat tone and smacked the monster's hand away.

"Because I'm sorry," Shizuo answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Now that Izaya had refused his help, Shizuo took a step backwards, wanting to give the man some space.

Another apology, Izaya thought bitterly as he placed his palm flat against the ground and pushed himself upwards. The simple act of standing was tiring him out, but he had to move if he wanted to go home. Ignoring the beast watching his every move, he canted his head to the side and worked on dusting off his pants and jacket, until he heard a click followed by the smell of a burning cigarette. He snapped his head in Shizuo's direction so fast that he almost got dizzy, wide eyes transfixed on the stick between the monster's lips. He swallowed thickly and slowly backed away, Shizuo too busy fixing his own clothes to notice how pale the Informant had gone the moment the smell hit his nostrils. Izaya barely stopped a pathetic whimper from climbing up his throat and he closed his eyes to at least not see it, but all he could hear were the monster's grunts from back then, his brain unwillingly making the association between the tobacco smell and the beast's sounds of pleasure.

It wasn't until Shizuo's eyes drifted back to Izaya that he noticed something was wrong.

"S-Shizu-chan..." Izaya spoke in a low pained voice, his eyes still scrunched up in agony. "Put it o-out," he almost begged, the fingers of his right hand painfully digging into his other arm.

"Huh?" Shizuo asked and dumbly stared at the other's pained expression until he realized that Izaya was talking about the cigarette. He immediately hurled it to the ground and stepped on it, all the while cursing under his breath for being so stupid. "I didn't know... I'm sorry, I got confused. The other you didn't mind."

Izaya's eyes fluttered open, revealing confused and at the same time curious brown-red orbs. "What other me?" he asked, but this time his voice was less shaky.

Shizuo sighed loudly and lowered his head, eyes fixed on the cigarette he'd just viciously crushed under the sole of his shoe. "Just a dream I had," he muttered, and then continued when Izaya seemed genuinely interested in finding out more. "It felt so real, you know? You weren't at my apartment last night, were you?"

Izaya slowly shook his head and lowered his hand, his brain no longer bombarded by painful flashbacks. He tilted his head to the side, hoping to hear more about what Ikebukuro's beast had dreamed about.

"It was you... but it wasn't you. At first, I thought it was you, but he didn't have a scar on his thigh, so it couldn't have been you, 'cause you have one, right?"

Izaya blinked a few times before he nodded and slowly approached Shizuo, only stopping a couple of feet from him.

"He thought I was the Shizuo he knew, but he eventually figured out that I wasn't. He... the other you and the other me..." Shizuo said and then continued in a voice so low that Izaya had to strain his ears in order to hear him, "they were together, you see. I mean like really together, even though they seemed to have broken each other too."

Izaya took a step backwards, appalled by the words he'd just heard coming out of the beast's mouth. If Shizuo had dreams about the two of them being together then... "Do you..." and he had to swallow the lump in his throat so that he could continue, "want to... fuck me again?"

Shame and guilt washed over Shizuo and his expression morphed into one that was just as appalled as Izaya's. "No..." he answered weakly. "NO!"

Izaya fished out both switchblades and flicked them open in one fluid movement before he assumed a fighting stance. If the beast was dreaming about the two of them being together then he could no longer trust him not to assault him again. Not that he had ever trusted him, but he wanted to believe that Shizuo could keep it in his pants.

"You don't have to― goddammit, Izaya, stop looking at me like I'm about to rip your clothes off and fuck you right here on this warehouse's floor," Shizuo snapped, his anger burning so bright that he marched to the small chair he'd been sitting on earlier and kicked it straight into the opposite wall. He then turned around, looking almost livid. "You know what? Screw you, bastard!" he snarled and headed for the heavy door, not even sparing Izaya a glance as he opened it and slammed it with a lot more force than was necessary.

Once he found himself outside, Shizuo hated to admit that he had no idea where he was, but he kept on walking, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the bastard who should've just shot him instead of kissing him. If he'd done that, then Shizuo wouldn't have had to witness Izaya break down for a second time in less than twenty-four hours; it was more than even Ikebukuro's beast could handle. He never would've kissed him if he had a choice, but he hadn't, and because he'd played along, Izaya had ended up looking at him as though he'd just raped him all over again even though Shizuo himself had been as unwilling during the whole thing.

Shizuo was sorry. He was fucking sorry. He was so sorry about the pain he had caused Izaya that he wanted to curl into a corner and die there like the disgusting animal that he was. As those thoughts consumed him, he felt tears prickle his eyes and he growled, rapidly blinking a few times to chase them away. He'd come close to breaking down a few times too, but each time that happened, he grit his teeth and kept going, waiting for the day when Izaya would get tired of the games and finally plunge one of those switchblades into his heart.

It wasn't that he wanted to die so that he wouldn't feel anymore―well, maybe a little―but the main reason why he craved nothingness' sweet embrace was because he genuinely thought he deserved to die for what he'd done, regardless of the reasons he might've had to punish Izaya. He didn't understand it at first, but after seeing Kasuka's beaten body and believing that his little brother had went through the same horrible experience as Izaya, he finally understood that any person who did such a despicable thing to another deserved nothing less than to be wiped out of existence. As though he wasn't being tormented enough, he had ended up meeting another Izaya through a dream which felt so real and that made Shizuo doubt his sanity; a dream that only succeeded in inflating the guilt he already felt towards the bane of his existence. The sad thing was that he still hated Izaya, which made everything that much worse. The guilt made him feel sorry for the pest, but his hatred still burned bright whenever he even so much as looked at him. Shizuo truly loathed himself for doing something that made him feel sorry for the man he hated the most in the entire world.

Every day he felt torn in half by the hate and the pity he felt for the man. It confused him so much that most of the times he didn't even know how to act around him. He wanted to go back, back to when they were nothing more than enemies hating each other's guts, back to when the flea was still looking at him with disdain instead of fear. "FUCK!" he bellowed at the sky from the top of his lungs. "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!" he kept shouting a few more times before lowering himself into a squatting position―much like Izaya had done―and pulling at his hair in both rage and despair. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," he kept repeating through clenched teeth for a while until he could finally breathe again. Only once he was done he released the few blond strands of hair he had grabbed earlier and opened his eyes. "You can't fucking break down," he told himself before he stood up and forced his legs to move.

He had no idea for how long he'd been walking, but it was starting to get dark by the time he reached Ikebukuro's busy streets. His clothes were a mess and he was bleeding, but he didn't give a shit as he walked into a shop and ordered a chocolate cake for the taking. The vendor seemed slightly scared of him, so she quickly packed it and handed it to him. Shizuo hoped she didn't mind a few smudges of blood on the bills he'd just handed. He also stopped to buy two cartons of milk, one for when he got home and another one for the next morning. His throat was so dry and raw after so much shouting that he couldn't help but cringe each time he had to speak because of how terrible his voice sounded, but he didn't want to drink the milk in the middle of the street, as tempting as that was. He nearly stopped at the pastry shop too, but instead of going in, he balled his hands into fists and kept walking, knowing that he shouldn't overdo it just because he felt like shit.

As soon as he got home, he put the cake and the cartons of milk in the fridge and rushed straight to the shower, glad to finally get rid of the blood caked on his temple and in his hair from where his head had been savagely banged into a wall. He undressed himself as fast as he could and dropped the dirty clothes into the sink, intending to wash them later when he was up to the task. He let out a soft sigh as the hot water pattered his back and he made up his mind to leave the mulling for when he'd be digging into the chocolate cake while watching TV. He stayed under the shower for a long time, until the water started to turn cold and he had no choice but to get out.

As he stepped out of the shower, he caught his reflection in the mirror and he cringed, realizing that his roots were starting to show. He made a mental note to buy some dye because he was too used to blonde hair to switch back to his natural brown color. He grabbed the towel, dried himself off and then walked out of the small bathroom and headed straight for the sweatpants he'd tossed on the bed when he'd woken up that morning, the same ones he remembered wearing in his messed up dream. "I should've kept my mouth shut," he mumbled to himself before he put them on and went to retrieve the cake he'd bought.

The thing was a bit too big, but it didn't really matter. He shrugged and placed it on a plate before he grabbed a spoon and went into the living room where he sat down on the couch with a pleasurable sigh. He then grabbed the remote control and changed the channels a few times until he finally found a decent enough movie that he thought he would be able to watch without getting annoyed. He reclined on the couch, put his feet on the coffee table and dug into the cake, eyes almost rolling into his head at how sweet it tasted. Now that he thought about it, he didn't really want to mull over the day's events just yet, and he firmly told himself―as he shoved another spoonful of cake into his mouth―that even someone like him should be allowed to have a small respite once in a while.

Chapter 39: Solemn Reflections

Izaya waited for a while longer to make sure Shizuo was gone before he numbly walked out of the warehouse and headed for a more populated area. He still couldn't believe that he had broken down in front of Shizuo, the only person in the world to whom he never wanted to show such weakness; all because of a kiss and some groping. A shiver ran down his spine. "A kiss too much," he thought, frightened, and then pocketed the switchblades he forgot were even in his hands. Not even Shinra had seen such a shameful display, and Shinra had seen a lot. Izaya had worked hard to show Shizuo that he was strong, and yet it all came crashing down in an instant because of something as stupid as pretending they were together.

Just the thought of them being together almost made him wretch and he wondered how did the beast have the audacity to even dream such a thing. Was that Shizuo's coping mechanism? To pretend that Izaya had wanted it? A hand flew to his mouth and he had to stop walking, a wave of nausea hitting him so hard that his legs started to tremble and he was having a hard time standing. He ended up in a squatting position again, holding onto his knees while struggling to breathe. He stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to gather his wits.

By the time he was able to stand again, he felt more tired than he'd felt in a long time and he wanted nothing more than to get home and lie in his bed. He immediately headed for the nearest train station, completely ignoring a Kuronuma Aoba who once again tried to talk to him when they ran into each other. He was too broken to even try to pretend that he wasn't. Besides, Ran's little brother wasn't someone he had to worry about. Whether or not the kid could tell that he was close to breaking into sobbing, it did not matter. He found it strange that Aoba's hand was bandaged, but he didn't really dwell on it. If Aoba ever got in his way, he'd crush him. It was as simple as that. At least the other was walking out of the train station instead of heading in, so Izaya didn't have to worry about having to ride the train with him.

He soon stopped paying attention to his surroundings, his mind too exhausted to care about what was going on. He went through the motions mechanically: stepping into the train, sitting down, then getting out and walking all the way to his apartment before finally flopping on his bed without even changing his clothes. He just lay there motionless, with eyes wide and unseeing until he finally fell asleep.

He couldn't remember what he'd dreamed about when he woke up a few hours later, but he was sure that it hadn't been pleasant enough to justify the hard-on jutting from between his legs. He hated it. He hated it so much that he couldn't help but pathetically whimper at the knowledge that he'd have to take care of it when the damn thing still didn't go down a few minutes later. It was as though the universe was trying its best to make his life more miserable than it already was. He didn't want to think about anything related to sex, and yet his body was still betraying him once in a while, forcing him to literally take matters into his own hands.

He'd tried cold showers before, but they didn't always work, and he doubted he even had the energy to get up, let alone wash. He slowly crawled to the edge of the bed and let his feet touch the floor before he unbuckled his belt, lowered the zipper and took a few deep breaths in an attempt to fight off the nausea. He pulled out his member with trembling fingers and it took all of his energy just to move his hand up and down the shaft, at the same time fighting the horrific memories of that night. He kept telling himself that he was safe, that the memory of Shizuo's fingers in his hair while violently thrusting into him was just that, a memory, and yet the tears still streamed down his face. He came with a strangled cry a few minutes later, immediately breaking into sobbing and curling into a ball on his too large bed. What used to be a pleasant activity ended up being a nightmare because of Shizuo. Izaya loathed the pleasure that came with it because he couldn't help but think that it was exactly what Shizuo must've felt while violating him. The beast had felt nothing but pleasure while Izaya himself had been writhing in agony beneath and around him. He despised Ikebukuro's beast for doing this to him, for not only crushing his body with his strength, but also his mind.

He just lay there for a long time, curled into a small ball while sobbing, his head pounding much worse than before, like he hadn’t slept at all. A detached part of his mind was sneering at him in disgust, ordering him to get up, to shower and to get a grip because he couldn't stand the pathetic sight any longer. Orihara Izaya was supposed to be much more than a human, and as such, he wasn't allowed to behave like one. Besides, sobbing never solved anything. He was alone, crying in the dark, while Shizuo was probably sleeping peacefully in his bed. He felt his anger simmer and then boil after a while, and the more he thought about the beast, the more furious he got, the hot rage seeping through his veins forcing him to push himself off the bed and head straight to the shower, the rage he felt giving him the strength he needed. He would never allow Ikebukuro's beast to win.

He'd been too soft on him lately and it was about time to show him just how cruel Orihara Izaya could be. After his failed attempt at revenge, he'd been slacking, feeling too affected by the way his plan had backfired to be able to think clearly. His fights with Shinra and the random encounters with the beast had also thrown him off, leaving him unable to think clearly. That had to stop. He would no longer allow himself to be distracted by such trivial matters. He would slowly and systematically destroy Heiwajima Shizuo, until the beast would beg to be put out of its misery; until Ikebukuro's monster would drop to his knees and thank him for finally thrusting a switchblade into his heart. And he would start by hitting him where it hurt the most: his little brother Kasuka.

Izaya could've utterly destroyed Shizuo back when he'd taken the monster's brother to that house, but he never would've guessed that he'd be so affected by what was supposed to happen. He now understood that his mistake had been to go there instead of letting Slon do his job somewhere away from him. He'd miscalculated, and as such, his perfect revenge plan had gone down the drain. Izaya knew that Shizuo couldn't stop him from finishing what he'd started back then if he really wanted to get it done, but he sneered at the idea of being so predictable, not to mention that he did not like the idea of Kasuka getting raped on his command no matter how much he hated the Heiwajima brothers. He was certain that he could never do that to anyone. Luckily, he had something else in mind, and he assumed that it would probably be one of the few games he'd play with Ikebukuro's beast before finally dispatching him beyond the veil.

First however, he had a few things he wanted the monster to understand, and the fact that Shizuo would end up as an outlet for his anger that very night was a nice bonus. He got out of the shower, got dressed and went out the door, his thoughts filled with ideas on how he would take it out on Ikebukuro's beast. The anger he felt consumed him with its intensity and it was the only thing that helped him move when his weary body wanted nothing more than to go back to bed and consequently to sleep. He ignored the underlying fear and focused on his rage, for once thinking that it not might be so bad to just explode once in a while. He always hid his feelings behind a mask when he dealt with people, but after showing Shizuo what lay beyond it, he no longer cared to conceal his fury.

He almost ran into the van gang on his way to Shizuo's apartment, but he succeeded in avoiding them at the last second. He actually breathed in relief once he went around the corner, running into Karisawa being the last thing he needed at that moment. With his anger boiling, he really couldn't guarantee the fujoshi's safety if she were to come anywhere near him. Her stupid words had caused that panic attack which had nearly got him killed, and he made a mental note to find a way to make her pay for saying that he and Shizuo were sleeping together. He sneered loudly, his nostrils flaring. He would never in a million years be the monster's bitch by his own volition.

His hands shook inside the pockets of his jacket, but he told himself that it was because of his anger and not because he was afraid of confronting the monster of his nightmares. Shizuo would most likely be asleep and that suited him just fine. The man would let his guard down when he saw him and that would make it easier for Izaya to overpower him. He threw a disgusted look at the elevator and went up the stairs instead, taking out the switchblade in his left hand as he did so. Once in front of the apartment, he flicked it open and took a few deep breaths while trying to find the courage to knock on the door. He highly doubted that Shizuo would dare kill him in his own home, or kill him at all, but he still had to be careful. Shizuo had proven capable of committing atrocities and Izaya had no intention of letting Ikebukuro's beast fuck him again.

He raised a hand and rang the doorbell, expecting the man to take a while to answer, but not even a few seconds later Shizuo was opening the door, the surprised expression on his face telling Izaya that he was probably the last person he ever expected to see at that late hour. He didn't waste any time, and before Shizuo could even open his mouth, he punched him square in the face, Shizuo staggering backwards from the force of the blow. He was certain that it hurt him more than it hurt Shizuo, but he didn't really care. Ignoring the pain, he wrapped a hand around Shizuo's throat, slammed him into the wall and pressed the switchblade against the tanned neck. Izaya felt adrenaline rush through his body and it thrilled him to know that all it took to end Shizuo once and for all would be to slit the man's throat. "This is for today," he hissed, his voice laced with disgust.

"No, you can't blame me for this one!" Shizuo snarled and tried to push himself away from the wall, only to get slammed back into it again. "You are the one who kissed me, not the other way around."

Izaya chuckled darkly, as though he was expecting Ikebukuro's beast to say that. "I was talking about you getting caught, not about the kiss. How could a monster like you get kidnapped to begin with?"

Sighing softly, Shizuo closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them and gazing deeply into brown-red orbs. "They used drugs on me. They injected me with something, so I couldn't fight them off."

"Mhmm, makes sense," Izaya mused as he nodded.

"You shouldn't have kissed me," Shizuo added in a tired voice.

"Of course I had to," Izaya immediately answered, a look of disgust crossing his face at the memory. "You still don't get it, do you, Shizu-chan?"

Of course he didn't get it, because Shizuo had never understood Izaya, so he wasn't about to suddenly wake up one morning and know what the hell was going through the insect's messed up head. Izaya's expression turned dark and Shizuo shivered at the sight.

"I would've blown you if that was what it took to keep our secret," Izaya declared, and he ended up chuckling when Shizuo gasped and his expression morphed into one of pure horror and incredulity. Perhaps the beast was not as interested in screwing him again as Izaya had previously thought. "Shizu-chan," he spoke sweetly, and he assumed that he must've had a blood-thirsty expression on his face because he could almost see the fear in the monster's eyes "you can't just walk out on me like that when we were having a most fascinating conversation. What was that about you and I being together?"

"You're insane," Shizuo uttered in disbelief once he found his voice again. He concluded that Izaya was truly mad to even consider going to such lengths if it meant he'd keep his pride. "I wouldn't have let you," he added softly in a low, sad voice.

"Oh, I see. Does Shizu-chan not like it when people do things to his body against his will? Sounds a bit hypocritical, don't you think?" Izaya snorted and placed his thumb against Shizuo's jaw, forcing the beast to look at him. "Doesn't it?" It was beautiful to see the usually angry expression replaced by one of agony and he understood right then and there that he would never be able to experience such feelings. Guilt wasn't something he usually felt, and when he did feel regret, it was just something small and insignificant in the back of his mind. Shizuo on the other hand was being torn to pieces by it and Izaya had to admit that he was absolutely enjoying it. Had he killed him sooner, he wouldn't have been able to witness such a tormented expression. "Tell me... or did you perhaps enjoy our kiss, hmm?" When Shizuo turned his head away again, Izaya knew that the monster had enjoyed it, and even though it enraged him, he still put on an amused smirk. "Once a beast, always a beast. Do you want to fuck me too, hmm? Do you want to drag me to your bedroom and fuck me just like you did last time?" He could almost feel the tremors threatening to reappear, but he fought to stay calm, refusing to show any sort of weakness to his enemy.

"I couldn't enjoy it because of the bad memories," Shizuo confessed and closed his eyes to avoid looking at Izaya's angry face. "And no, I don't want to... fuck you again."

Izaya sneered and pulled the beast towards him before slamming him into the wall again, certain that Shizuo would not dare to fight back as long as that switchblade was pressed against his throat. "And yet you dream of us being together... of you fucking me. You dream about that, don't you, beast?"

Shizuo shook his head as much as he could with Izaya chocking him and the weapon digging into his neck. He knew that it had been a stupid idea to even mention the dream, but he sometimes spoke without thinking and now he couldn't just pretend that it had never happened. "I never said the two of us were together," he corrected Izaya while trying not to flinch under the man's hateful glare. "I was talking about another you and another me. If I would really want to... fuck you, I'd at least dream about you, no? Not about some homicidal Izaya who was just as surprised about the whole thing as I was." To his bewilderment, instead of snapping, Izaya seemed to be giving the whole thing some thought.

"Homicidal?" Izaya finally asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Don't tell me you expected anything else from another you," Shizuo mumbled.

Izaya chortled as he removed the switchblade from Shizuo's throat and backed away, his anger having gone down to a constant simmer instead of boiling hot as it had been mere minutes before. He waited for a few moments to see if the beast would attack, and when Shizuo didn't, Izaya advanced further into the living room so that he could inspect the man's small apartment. "Tell me more," he requested while briefly glowering with disgust at what appeared to be the remainder of a chocolate cake on a cheap plate forgotten on the coffee table placed in front of the couch. There was also an open carton of milk, as well as a pack of cigarettes, and Izaya shook his head in distaste and pocketed the switchblade. He stepped into the kitchen and flicked on the light, curious to see how Ikebukuro's beast lived. The apartment was small and it felt almost suffocating for someone like him who was used to a lot of space, but he guessed that it suited a monster just fine.

His eyes fell on the two apples placed in a bowl on the counter and he grabbed one and washed it before going back to the living-room and turning towards the small hallway leading to the bedroom. No matter how much he wanted to convince Shizuo that he didn't fear him, he didn't dare go inside; the beast's bedroom was on a whole new level of terrifying. "Well?" he asked and looked over his shoulder to encourage a wide-eyed Shizuo to continue. A small shiver ran down Izaya's spine when he turned his attention back to the hallway leading to the bedroom. He didn't understand why he was so terrified of a room he'd never set foot into before. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he turned around, walked to the couch and flopped down on it, raising his feet and placing them on the coffee table. Shizuo let out a small sound of disbelief and Izaya gave him a smirk before he bit into the apple and noisily chewed on it.

Knowing that it would be a bad idea to tell him everything, Shizuo sighed loudly and decided to leave out some of the things he found out about the other Izaya from his dream. It wouldn't do any good to upset the one sitting on his couch and eating his apple. "Can I sit down?" he asked softly and scrubbed a hand over his face before running it through his hair.

Izaya shrugged. "It's your couch," he answered flatly, but Shizuo didn't miss the way in which the man tensed when he heard the question. He awkwardly sat down at opposite end of it and he couldn't help but feel as though he was the one imposing on Izaya somehow, which was ridiculous when he really thought about it. It truly was strange how Izaya could make him feel like that inside his own home. "The dream felt just as real as you and me sitting here. You took me by surprise back there by the way."

Izaya slanted a curious gaze towards him. "Why?"

"Your murderous glare... he was smiling when I opened the door."

Izaya chuckled darkly and bit another chunk off the apple. "Interesting... go on," he bubbled while chewing and changing the channels on the television.

"There isn't much to say. He thought I was someone else and when he figured out that I wasn't, all hell broke loose. That's what happened," he mumbled and then shrugged. He heard a snicker and he turned to Izaya, that ever present annoying smirk back in place.

"You're such a bad liar," Izaya announced with a roll of his eyes." You forgot the part where you undoubtedly pulled down his pants by force." As expected, Shizuo had done just that, and Izaya could read the guilt in his expression and sagged shoulders.

"Had to check that he wasn't you," Shizuo mumbled guiltily.

"Perfectly understandable, Shizu-chan. That was a messed up dream you had there. Another me and another you together, huh? Well, if the hypothesis about the multiverse is right, then whatever happened to you actually took place somewhere else," Izaya mused, his eyes fixed on what was left of the apple in his hand. "Oh, right, Shizu-chan is too stupid to know what I'm talking about," he crackled before continuing. "There are several hypothesis about the reality we live in." His eyes drifted to Shizuo and he smiled innocently. "It's not easy to explain such a complex concept to a protozoan, but I'll try my best. I'll have to dumb it down a lot, so pay attention, ne?" Shizuo growled in response, but Izaya ignored him and went on.

"One of them is the concept of Parallel Universes. If there is an infinite number of realities, then the chances are there are also an infinite versions of you and me. Perhaps there's a Heiwajima Shizuo somewhere out there who's not a disgusting enough pig to drag me into an alley and almost fuck me to death." Shizuo flinched and lowered his head. Izaya immediately felt like sneering, but he controlled himself. "Another one is the concept of Daughter Universes. According to this, all possible outcomes of a situation do occur, in their own separate universes. For example, when Shizu-chan asked me to apologize and told me he'd let me walk away if I did, that universe gave rise to two daughter universes: one in which I apologized and walked away, and one in which I didn't, and we both know how that ended. Well, that's debatable. I cannot be one hundred percent sure that you would've let me walk away even if I had apologized."

"I would've..." Shizuo answered brokenly.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them for a while, until Izaya finally took one last bite from the apple and carelessly threw what was left of it towards the ashtray, completely missing it, the thing sliding across the surface of the coffee table before finally falling on the carpet. He barely suppressed a malicious laugh when he saw Shizuo's eyebrow twitch in irritation and he felt no remorse when the man rose to his feet, picked it up and went into the kitchen to throw it into the trashcan before finally coming back and sitting down on the couch.

"What are the other theories?" Shizuo asked while trying to hide the annoyance he felt after the apple stunt.

"They are not theories, Shizu-chan, they are merely hypotheses," Izaya corrected him. "Hypotheses are speculative guesses that have yet to be tested, while theories are well-established principles developed to explain some aspects of the natural world. Anyway, there are a few more hypotheses, but I don't want your already overheated few neuron to get fried, so I won't continue. Those two are enough," Izaya reasoned. Against expectations, Shizuo didn't protest and instead turned towards him with an expression that Izaya couldn't quite place.

"Do you really think there's a universe out there where things are still the way they used to be?"

Izaya's mind went back to a time when he was still himself and Shizuo was nothing more than a dumb brute with inhuman strength. He smiled, wishing there was a way to go back to that, but there wasn't, and his smile fell and he couldn't help but grief the loss of what they used to have. "I hope there is," he finally answered. "I'd hate to believe that I got caught by you an infinite number of times." Silence descended upon the small living-room once again, until Izaya turned up the volume on the TV and focused his attention on whatever movie was on. "Shizu-chan," he spoke softly and rose one finger, "one night."

"Huh?" Shizuo asked dumbly.

"Let's do a one night truce," Izaya suggested without even looking at Shizuo. "Even in war, opposing armies take such measures once in a while in order to recover their fallen comrades' rotting corpses littering the battlefield."

For a few seconds, Shizuo couldn't breathe, the sound of Izaya's calm and honest voice taking him by surprise. One night of no fighting sounded almost too good to be true, but he clung to Izaya's words as though his life depended on it. He tried to answer, but he couldn't, so instead he gave a grunt of assent and turned his head towards the TV.

Izaya lowered his hand and made himself comfortable. He was so tired that he couldn't even get up and his mind was simply too exhausted for him to fight any longer. A break sounded nice.

"Was it the kiss?" Shizuo asked a few minutes later.

"It was your wandering hand, Shizu-chan," Izaya answered with a long sigh.

"I'm sorry... I just wanted it to end faster."

"Shut up," Izaya ordered. "I don't need your apologies." I just need a break.

Chapter 40: Lonely Footsteps

It was around dawn when Izaya's eyes fluttered open, a pained gasp slipping past his lips because of the uncomfortable position in which he'd been sleeping. He groaned when he tried to get up, agony immediately shooting up his spine and making him halt his movements. For a moment, he was confused as to why he wasn't lying in his bed, but he finally remembered where he was when he took a look at his surroundings. He immediately sought to pull out his switchblades, but Shizuo was nowhere in sight and Izaya's brows furrowed in confusion when he noticed the blanket draped over his form. He took a few deep breaths to calm down, knowing there was no point in panicking when he was alone. The beast had not only left him there to sleep in peace, but also covered him with a blanket to keep him warm. He felt his laughter effervescing and he immediately pressed his lips tightly together in order to contain it since waking up the monster was the last thing he wanted to do.

The whole situation was not only insane, but also absurd. He'd fallen asleep on Shizuo's couch and that alone made him want to punch himself, but he knew that he would never actually do it because he didn't want to damage his good-looking face. Still, it was pretty crazy, even for someone as crazy as he was, and as he pushed the blanket away, he realized just how unpredictable Ikebukuro's beast truly was. Shizuo could've easily killed him, and yet the beast hadn't only not woken him up, but also went as far as to cover him so that he wouldn't freeze over night. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from bursting into laughter and it was only after he regained control again that he moved his numb feet off the coffee table and got up, a few of his joints popping as he straightened his back.

"One act of kindness doesn't erase what you've done, beast," Izaya muttered under his breath. He knew that he'd forever be mentally scarred by what had happened to him, and that was why he hated Shizuo so much. Izaya had been beaten before, especially when he was still young and he'd just started working as an Informant, but things like that hadn't really affected him in the long run. He could take a beating, hell, he could even take a few broken bones, but the humiliation he'd endured at Shizuo's hands broke something inside of him. As he stood there, he was seriously considering stabbing Shizuo in his sleep, and even though he dreaded going into the beast's bedroom, he still slowly and quietly made his way across the small hallway. He stopped when he reached the open door, the nausea he was already feeling suddenly skyrocketing to the point that he had to grab onto the door's frame to steady himself. He hung on it for dear life, not trusting his legs to not buckle beneath him.

The abhorrence he felt at the sight of his worst enemy made his hand itch for the switchblade, so once he was certain that he wouldn't collapse, he pulled it out with a shaky hand and took a step inside. The closer he got to Shizuo, the weaker he felt, and yet he kept on walking despite how badly he was tottering, refusing to succumb to the fear twisting his insides into a cold knot. The darkness within was swiftly devouring him with every moment spent with the disgusting animal before him and the rage he felt seeping through his veins wanted him to cause havoc. He raised the switchblade to thrust it into the beast's heart, but the monster's peaceful expression froze his hand in the air. Shizuo was obviously not suffering enough if he could sleep so well, and Izaya tried to convince himself that he should wait just a bit longer before finally converting the beast into food for worms. He reluctantly lowered his hand and simply stared at the sleeping face for a long time, all the while fighting the urge to kill him. When said urge finally died down, a malevolent smile spread across his face and he carefully pocketed the switchblade before going back into the living room, only stopping to grab the cigarette pack and the lighter and give the small hallway one last look before slipping out of Shizuo's apartment and going down the stairs.

A shiver ran down his spine once he stepped outside, the chilly morning air making him wish that he could teleport directly into his bed. He loved the cold, but not when the only thing he wanted to do was to go back to sleep. He stopped for a moment to zip up his jacket before he headed towards the nearest train station, never noticing the person taking pictures of him from behind the corner of Shizuo's apartment building. He sluggishly pulled out his phone and sent Namie a message, specifying that he'd pay her double if she didn't show up for work that day. Luckily, the train ride was uneventful and he couldn't have been more grateful for not running into anyone he knew; he doubted he could have a decent conversation when his eyelids felt like they had turned to lead. He barely had the strength to walk by the time he reached his apartment, but no matter how tempted he was to fall asleep on the couch, he languidly climbed the stairs and stepped into the bedroom. He sluggishly took off his jacket and placed it down on the bed before he crawled over to the other side, covered himself with the blanket, and easily fell asleep. For the first time in a long time, he dreamed that he was a god and that his humans loved him just as much as he loved them.

He was only woken up again late in the afternoon by the insistent call of nature. He grabbed a clean set of clothes and went into the bathroom to relieve himself and to take a shower, still yawning now and then even though he'd slept for so long. He wanted to go back to sleep, but his stomach was making weird noises to remind him that he should eat something, so after the shower he got dressed and went to make some french toast. He could've prepared something better, but he felt extremely lazy and surprisingly still tired. He took the plate to the desk and sank into his chair, smiling a bit as he turned the computer on and checked his messages.

When he noticed he had a new email from Kimiko, he immediately clicked on it, curious to know if the girl had finally gathered the courage to confess to her crush. He picked up a slice of french toast and proceeded to munch on it as he read her message. Apparently, she had confessed to her classmate, but the teenager told her that he wasn't interested in her that way and that he was already seeing someone. Kimiko then proceeded to cry about how no one loved her and that her life sucked. She also told him that she was waiting for Nakura-san to take her to the building where he said he might kill himself in a previous email because she saw no point in continuing living.

"Pathetic," Izaya said as he picked up another slice of french toast, giving the whole situation some thought before making up his mind to send her a message in which he'd ask her to meet up so that the two of them could jump together to their deaths.

He then swiveled a few times in his desk chair before he stopped and gazed at the city before him. It was bursting with life, and even though he still felt rather tired after everything he'd been through, he still wanted to go out there. He sat there contemplating for a long time until he heard the sound of a new message and he turned around to send her his reply. He then got up, picked up another slice of french toast before he put the rest inside the fridge and went up the stairs to get dressed. He badly needed a distraction, and a whiny teenager girl seemed like a good enough excuse to go out, even if only to mess with her and see how she'd react. Kimiko lived in Ikebukuro, and since he wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone he knew, he put on a black hoodie and its matching pants instead of his usual signature fur-trimmed coat. He took a moment to look in the mirror and when he realized that he could hardly recognize his own face, he softly gasped in surprise. It wasn't the dark circles under his eyes or the cracked lips that made him look different, but that utterly defeated expression on his face.

"Don't worry, you'll feel better tomorrow," he tried to convince himself with a forced smile on his face before he turned around and went down the stairs to look for a pair of sports shoes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd wore them, but he didn't think his usual ones worked well with the hoodie and that's why he had opted for something different. Sighing, he put them on once he found them and grabbed his phone, the cigarette pack and the lighter, the keys and a couple of switchblades―just in case he'd need them―and plodded out of the apartment.

Sometimes, he thought that he purposely talked to girls from Ikebukuro so that he'd have an excuse to go there, but for once he wished that Kimiko lived in Shinjuku or even in Shibuya because he didn't really want to risk running into Shizuo so soon after his breakdown, especially when he was still very much ashamed about showing the beast his most hidden side. The building he chose this time around was not a popular suicide spot, but many people passed it by and that was exactly what he wanted. If the girl jumped, there'd be a gruesome spectacle in front of it.

He arrived there half an hour early, hoping to have some time for himself before dealing with the whiny teenager. He slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew the cigarette pack he'd snatched from Shizuo's apartment, all the while doing his best to fight both the disgust and the nausea he felt the moment his fingers had touched it. He couldn't stand the thought of being affected by something so small and he made up his mind to overcome this particular weakness no matter what or how long it would take. He slowly pulled one out with quivering hands, but when he brought it close to his nose, he was bombarded by memories of fingers―smelling the exact same way―covering his mouth and nose with bruising force. The pack and the cigarette slipped from his hands, and as he stood there leaning against the wall, he laughed brokenly at his own weakness. He knew that it shouldn't affect him so much, especially when he hadn't even lit it up, and yet such a small thing still ended up rousing such a strong reaction in him. "You're pathetic, Orihara Izaya," he chastised himself. "Truly pathetic."

Grimacing, his eyes shifted to the cigarette pack and he bent down to pick it up, immediately shoving it into his pocket so that he would no longer see the damn thing. It was ludicrous that he had such a debilitating weakness, and without realizing what he was doing, he rubbed the spot on his neck where Shizuo had burned him with the cigarette before he ran a hand through his hair and moved to wait near the edge. No matter how much of an indomitable task it seemed, he would overcome it. Sighing, he pushed twitchy hands into the pockets of his hoodie and gazed at the view below, now capable of understanding why some people chose to opt out of life. He'd heard of people committing suicide after going through a similar experience to what he had suffered at Shizuo's hands, and even though he'd mocked and called them weak in the past, he didn't think that way anymore. Some things were just too torturous to live with, but he wasn't like them and he had no intention of giving up on his dream of immortality. Broken or not, he still wanted to live forever.

Izaya wondered how the beast would react if he were to attack him with the clear intention of ending his monstrous existence. It was one thing to attempt to take your own life and another one entirely to let yourself get killed by your archenemy. Shizuo was obviously sorry about what he'd done, but Izaya still doubted that Ikebukuro's strongest would just stand there and do nothing if a switchblade were to head straight for his heart. Then again, Shizuo always did unexpected things, so the stupid protozoan could surprise him by letting himself get killed without lifting a finger. Izaya was however certain that nothing would ever surprise him more than Shizuo's behavior that accursed night.

Sighing once again, he lowered himself to a crouching position, placed his elbows on his thighs and rested his head on his palms while he gazed at the city below him with a tired expression on his face. He had no idea how long he'd stayed like that, but he was finally awoken from his musing when he heard the sound of footsteps.

"Nakura-san?"

Izaya forced a smile on his face before he got up and narrowed the distance between himself and his newest toy. "Ah, Kimiko-chan, it's nice to finally meet you in person," he greeted her sweetly before turning around again and heading for the edge of the rooftop. "It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" he asked as he spread his arms and inhaled deeply.

"I don't like darkness that much," Kimiko confessed shyly and stepped beside him.

Izaya lowered his arms and turned to face her. "But Kimiko-chan," he said and tilted his head, regarding her with something akin to amusement, "in the beginning, there was only darkness." As expected, she gave him a confused look and Izaya barely manage to suppress a chuckle.

"Are you really going to jump, Nakura-san?"

This time, Izaya chuckled darkly, a nasty smirk almost splitting his face in two. "Of course I'm not going to jump," he declared, enjoying the shocked expression on Kimiko's face. Judging by the way she was gripping the sleeve of her jacket, the girl was obviously nervous, perhaps even scared, and Izaya thought that was exactly what she deserved for trusting a stranger.

"Nakura-san is mean for giving me false hope," she said in a slightly unsteady voice.

Izaya burst into laughter this time around, a mean, mocking laughter that made the girl take a few steps backwards. "Oh, Kimiko-chan, you're nothing special," he told her right before he moved to stand between her and the door. "You're just as special as every other teenager out there," he added in an amused tone. "Do you honestly think the world revolves around you?"

"N-No," she rushed to answer, her voice now quivering just as badly as the rest of her body. "I never s-said that!"

"But you thought it!" Izaya exclaimed, amused. "And when you realized that others don't see you the way you see yourself, you decided to end it." Izaya's eyes roamed over her form, studying her clothes with an amused expression. "You're trying too hard to look richer and smarter than you actually are. You really bring shame to your name. There's no wonder that guy rejected you!" Izaya barely managed to grab her wrist and avoid the slap, his eyes widening in surprise for only a moment before he put his mask back on. Kimiko looked like she was one step away from crying and he had to admit that he was enjoying her anger and distress. He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to play with his humans.

"Let me g-go," she pleaded, but instead of moving out of the way, Izaya only released her wrist before taking a step towards her, Kimiko mirroring his every move until she was standing at the edge of the building.

"Jump," he said harshly. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

She canted her head and fearfully gazed at the darkness below. "That's because you s-said you'd j-jump too!" she stuttered, a few tears trailing down her cheeks.

"Kimiko-chan is such a sheep! So boring!" he exclaimed as he pulled out a switchblade and flicked it open, her surprised gasp making him chuckle.

"P-Please let me go," she pleaded.

"But you said you wanted to die~e!" Izaya sang.

"I don't!" she rushed to answer, and when he didn't move, she dropped down to her knees, head bowed so low that she was nearly touching the surface with her forehead. "Please Nakura-san, I really don't want to die! Please!"

As he watched the terrified, trembling human beg for her life, Izaya couldn't help but sneer. "There are humans who go through hell every day, and yet you, you selfish little girl, thought that being rejected by a boy was so bad that you had to commit suicide. You disgust me!" he spat and pocketed the switchblade before turning on his heels and walking away. He stopped when he grasped the handle, but he didn't turn around as the next words rolled off his tongue. "Do the world a favor and jump," he advised her before opening the door and going down the stairs.

"How dull," he mumbled to himself and shook his head in disappointment. It never ceased to amaze him how weak some humans were, their desire to live disappearing when faced with problems that seemed insignificant to him. Had anyone else been in his situation, they would've most likely jumped off a building months ago, but Izaya refused to succumb to the depression that sometimes seized him and left him numb and wishing to just disappear. The only thing that had improved lately was that he was no longer as scared of Shizuo as he'd been before. Unfortunately, that still didn't stop him from going cold whenever he was anywhere near the beast, the memories of that night having been imprinted into every inch of his body.

Once outside the building, he pulled the hood over his head and waited for a while to see if she'd jump, but when she didn't, he walked away, his feet somehow leading him to Shinra's place. He tried to turn back a few times, but whenever he went into a different direction, something stopped him and pulled him back to where the doctor lived. He had no right to seek him out, not after refusing to forgive him, and yet he felt so lonely that he could hardly breathe. He had no one to talk to, no one besides Shizuo, and he couldn't exactly tell the beast that he was having a hard time when everything was the monster's fault to begin with. He wasn't sure he could tell Shinra either, but the proximity to the man might've soothed his aching heart. Instead of going in, he stopped across the street from the doctor's apartment building and sat down on the sidewalk beneath a flickering light pole. He pulled down his hood and sighed softly, feeling grateful that he could rest his weak legs for a while. He lacked stamina in general and sometimes he felt so weary that he could hardly get out of bed, but he kept pushing himself every day, refusing to succumb to the despondency consuming him from deep within.

Now, more than ever, he wanted Shinra to hold him tightly against his chest and gently stroke his hair, just as he had done that time when Izaya got stabbed. He wanted the doctor to tell him that everything would be all right and that his plan would succeed. There was a big chance that Shizuo would lose it again, and the simple thought of getting caught by that monster made him wrap his arms around trembling bent legs and rest his forehead against his drawn up knees. He'd never felt safer than the time Shinra held him in his arms and he hated himself for being so tempted to forgive him.

Just as he was berating himself, he felt a hand on his shoulder and he recoiled from the touch as though he'd been burned, turning around at neck-breaking speed only to stare in wordless dismay at Celty standing there frozen with her hand in the air for a few moments before she frantically typed something and bent down to show him the text.

[I'm sorry! Are you all right?] she inquired, the forlorn display making her feel horrible for startling him like that.

Ignoring his still wildly beating heart, Izaya licked his dry lips and nodded before he slowly sat back down on the sidewalk's curb.

[I didn't mean to startle you.]

"It's okay," he said, trying for one of his easygoing smiles and failing miserably.

Celty's fingers twitched a few times as they hovered above the PDA. [I'm really sorry,] she apologized again. Izaya might've been a bastard, but she should've known better than to sneak up behind him, especially after what he'd been through.

Izaya exhaled a tense and rather audible unhappy breath from his nose as he ran a hand through his hair in annoyance. "I'm not made of glass, you know?"

[Nor are you made of steel.] Against expectations, his mask slipped for a fraction of a second, and when she saw the pain beneath his usual indifference or malice, she put down the grocery bag and sat down next to him. [How have you been?]

"Peachy," he answered and inhaled a ragged breath, his voice sounding bitter more than anything else. "How about you, Courier-san?" he then leered, the corners of his lips quirking upwards into a disgusting smile. "Have you turned Shinra into a man yet?"

The PDA slipped from Celty's fingers, but luckily, Izaya managed to catch it before it hit the hard surface of the rugged concrete beneath their feet. "I'm guessing that's a no," he sighed in mock-disappointment as he handed her the small electronic device.

[Are you here to see him?] Celty asked in an attempt to change the subject, so flustered by Izaya's question that she could hardly think, images of that time she had slept in Shinra's bed coming back to her mind. They hadn't really done anything besides touching each other, but she still felt herself burn at the memory.

"I'm just resting for a bit," he answered as he gazed at the building before him. "I'll leave in a moment."

[No, please, come up for a bit. Shinra would be happy to see you.]

"I can't forgive him," Izaya confessed, and he felt jealousy bubbling up inside of him as his dark red gaze slanted Celty's way. The Dullahan had Shinra's unconditional love while Izaya himself had no one. He always thought it was ironic how both Celty and Shizuo―who were monsters―had people who cared about them. "Why are you still here?" he inquired, regarding her with a confused expression on his face.

[What do you mean?] she asked, feeling just as confused.

"I don't understand why you're here talking to me instead of comforting that other monster," Izaya shrugged and turned his head to blankly stare ahead, but he ended up sighing in annoyance when Celty shoved the PDA into his face again.

[I don't talk to him anymore,] the text said, and Izaya's eyes widened in disbelief as rusty-red eyes moved across every kanji written by the Dullahan next to him. He'd been certain that Celty wouldn't react very well after finding out what had happened, but he never really dared to hope that she would outright abandon Shizuo. His smile was brittle as he turned towards her and she could tell that he was itching to ask her something.

"Why? You two were friends. Aren't you going to blame me for what happened? Aren't you going to say that I asked for it, that I deserved it?" Instead of replying, she kept looking at him from behind that helmet with her nonexistent eyes and he felt himself tense so badly that he could feel his muscles twitch. It seemed like forever had passed before she raised the PDA and typed something on it, his heart ratcheting louder and louder until all he could hear was its heartbeats.

[I don't think anyone deserves to go through... that,] she answered honestly.

Brown-red eyes stayed glued to the small device for a long time, until he finally found the strength to tear them away from the words he'd been wanting so badly to hear. He felt grateful for some reason. To everyone else, it looked like he blamed Shizuo for everything that happened, but on the inside, there were moments when he couldn't help but think that he deserved it for always trying to push Shizuo over the edge and for being so weak as to get caught. If he was stupid enough to get captured by the wild beast, then perhaps he deserved to be punished for his failure. Luckily, he was usually able to chase away such thoughts, immediately going back to hating Shizuo, his hatred for the man only growing stronger. The smile he didn't know was on his face fell and he regarded her in silence for a long moment with an indecipherable expression.

[I'm really sorry you had to go through such a horrifying experience.]

"But you hate me..." he said weakly, still finding it hard to believe that Celty was being so nice to him.

[I dislike the things you do,] she clarified. [I wish you would've left Shizuo alone years ago.]

At seeing the beast's name, Izaya sneered, suddenly feeling angry at her. "Even when I left him alone, he still attacked me," he viciously spat out the words.

Celty's shoulders slumped. [I know... he told me you didn't do anything that day.]

Izaya's eyes widened in surprised and he blinked a few times, finding it hard to believe that Shizuo would admit to outright assaulting him for no reason at all.

[But I also know that it would've never gotten this far if only you hadn't been...]

"Hadn't been what? he hissed, his hands balled into fists so tightly that his nails were almost puncturing the skin of his palms.

[... so reckless,] Celty answered, and she watched him instantly relax. She'd meant to call him a bastard, but the pained look on his face made her reconsider. There was no point in adding insult to injury.

[ What you did to him over the years wasn't right either, you know that, right? ] she added, almost fearing his reaction. She didn't think he'd attack her, but the last thing Celty wanted to do was to kick someone who was already down; and Izaya was down, she could tell as much. The old Izaya would've never been caught dead sitting outside Shinra's apartment building simply because he felt lonely. Celty was not so blind―even though she didn't have a head and eyes to see―as to not understand that Izaya wanted to talk to Shinra, but the man's stupid pride and pettiness kept him from going up to their apartment.

"I really couldn't help myself," Izaya admitted as his thoughtful gaze slid back to her. "It was just so much fun to mess with him. That disproportionate reaction of his was fascinating to watch. How can someone who looks so much like a normal human do so much damage with little to not effort at all?" Slowly, he raised his hands and placed them around his arms, fingers harshly pressing into the skin. "Though it stopped being fun when said strength was so viciously used against me."

Without realizing what she was doing, Celty raised a hand and gently placed it on Izaya's shoulder, the man's flinch only serving to convince her that what Shizuo had done was truly monstrous. Izaya shouldn't have been startled by something as innocent as a soft touch, and yet the once fearless Informant was not as fearless anymore. Even though she was not human, she could sympathize with him. Just the thought of anyone touching her―anyone who wasn't Shinra―made her shudder, and it had to be that much worse for Izaya because of his hatred for Shizuo. Her former friend had truly messed him up, and yet, no matter how much disgust she felt for what Shizuo had done, she could sympathize with him as well. Izaya had tried to get the blond killed before, and yet there she was, comforting a man she so clearly disliked. She knew that she shouldn't feel sorry for Shizuo, but the memory of her friend's anguished expression as he tried to thrust that switchblade into his heart was making her want to go to his apartment and take him into her arms. She hated herself for thinking that way, but as more of an outside observer to humanity as a whole, she couldn't help but see the end result as a series of unfortunate events leading to an extremely messed up situation.

Even so, Celty knew with absolute certainty that if Izaya would've been the one to do such a thing to Shizuo, she would've killed the Informant where he stood, but because Shizuo had been her friend, she couldn't do that to him. To an objective observer, it'd be easy to hate Shizuo for what he'd done, but she was anything but that and her subjectivity certainly wasn't helping her out when having to deal with either of them. She almost envied Shinra for how easily he had discarded Shizuo, his friendship with the man―if it could even be called that―nowhere near as strong as what she and Shizuo had shared. She wanted to hate Shizuo just as much because then she wouldn't find herself wondering every day how he was doing, if he was okay, if he needed someone to be there for him, and so on. On the other hand, if she could sympathize with Izaya, who was obviously capable of murder, then maybe she was allowed to sympathize with Shizuo as well. Perhaps she needed to stop blaming herself for feeling sorry for the man because she no longer was the Dullahan going around Ireland and sending people to their deaths. Since her arrival to Japan, she had made connections with certain humans and it pained her to see them suffer.

"I'm going home," Izaya said as he stood up abruptly and pulled his hood on. "Don't tell Shinra I was here," he then requested without turning around, a feeling of lassitude spreading throughout his body.

Celty finally lowered her hand and watched Izaya walk away, the man's sagged shoulders making him appear quite small. He looks so lonely, she thought sadly, and as she grabbed the small grocery bag and got up, she hoped that Izaya would soon forgive Shinra because the man's need for someone to be there for him was painfully obvious even to a monster like her.

Chapter 41: Blood of a Broken Man

After their run-in with Ueda's men, both Tom and Shizuo agreed over the phone to take a few days off from work. Shizuo wasn't exactly injured, but Tom was having a hard time moving around. With nothing to do besides sitting on the couch and watching TV, Shizuo decided to go for a walk.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get the image of a sleeping Izaya out of his head no matter how hard he tried. That night he'd attempted to wake him up and send him home, but Izaya seemed so deep in sleep that words alone couldn't bring him back. Not knowing what else to do, Shizuo had placed a hand on Izaya's shoulder, his gesture making the sleeping raven whimper and murmur indistinct words that sounded like pleas. For a few seconds, Shizuo had been too shocked to react, but the moment he pulled back his hand, the noises stopped, as though Izaya's body could recognize the danger that was Ikebukuro's beast even in a sleeping state.

Shizuo shook his head in the vain hope of chasing away the memory and lit up a cigarette, his phone ringing just as he was about to take a much needed lungful of smoke. "What?" he barked into the phone without even bothering to check the number.

"Shizu-chan..."

"Izaya!" he gasped in surprise and stopped in his tracks.

"Are you busy?"

Shizuo gripped the phone tighter. "No."

"Can you meet me at the park near Shinra's apartment building?"

"Yeah, okay, I'll be there," Shizuo answered after a few moments of silence.

"See you there."

As soon as Izaya ended the call, Shizuo slowly lowered the phone and stared at it for a bit before slipping it into his pocket and heading in the direction of the park. Their truce had only lasted one night, but it proved that the two of them could stay in one place without killing each other. He had a feeling that Izaya would try to kill him sooner or later, but if the man were to ever give up on that thought, Shizuo hoped that one day the two of them could learn to live in something resembling peace.

Because Izaya hadn't specified where in the park they were supposed to meet, Shizuo assumed that the flea was waiting for him in the middle, so he headed that way. Surprisingly enough, there was no fur-trimmed jacket in sight, but when he heard Izaya's voice from somewhere behind him and he turned around, he couldn't have been more surprised at seeing him wear a hoodie instead of that stupid jacket he couldn't stand. "Why are you wea―"

"I was in the mood for a change," Izaya was quick to answer. "What? Doesn't Shizu-chan think that I look good in this, hmm?" He then moved closer, until he was right in Shizuo's face. "Not sexy enough for you?" he asked in a low voice, not wanting the people passing by to hear their conversation. "Perhaps not fuckable enough...?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Shizuo bit back, his tone laced with fury. He'd tried to keep his voice down, but it didn't look like he was doing a very good job at it because a few parents with kids threw him admonishing looks. "Do you really have to be such a fucking asshole every time we meet?" he went on, this time in a much softer voice.

"Come now, beast, don't deny it. You must've thought that I was at least good-looking to be able to get it up for me even though you hate me so much," Izaya commented with a nasty smirk on his face. "Tell me, at what exact moment did it cross your mind to fuck me?"

Without a word, Shizuo grabbed a skinny arm and dragged Izaya to a more secluded area of the park, not trusting himself to not raise his voice again when he felt so pissed off at the louse. "Seriously, what the fuck?"

Izaya jerked his arm free and continued to stare at Shizuo, the beast's mortified and yet angry expression telling him that he'd hit a nerve. "Just answer me," Izaya chirped, the sound incongruous to the seriousness of the question previously asked.

Shizuo grit his teeth harder and fought to not punch Izaya in the face, that anger he felt whenever the flea tried to rile him up for once failing to rear its ugly head to the point that he would succumb to his rage. Over the past few months he'd learn to control his anger problems a bit better, the proof being all those times he'd ran into Izaya and didn't end up hurting him. "Was this why you wanted to see me?" he asked tiredly.

"No, but I'll tell you why after you answer my question," Izaya promised.

Sighing, Shizuo leaned against the nearest tree and regarded Izaya with a curious expression on his face. "What prompted the question?"

Izaya shrugged. "The way you were looking at me. Ah, but don't use such big words, ne? Your brain might explode," he then added in an amused tone.

"It was when you licked the blood off your lips," Shizuo reluctantly admitted after a few long moments of silence, hoping that the flea would change the subject now that he had his answer.

"Shizu-chan really is into guys, huh?" the words simply slipped out of Izaya's mouth, but the fact that something as innocent as licking the blood off his split lip prompted the assault was not something he wanted to think about when he had more important things to discuss with the brute.

"Why do you always do this?"

Izaya tilted his head, confused. "Do what?"

"Try to provoke me into losing it, into hurting you. It's like you want me to attack you again." Shizuo thought that Izaya's sneer made asking the question pointless, but the flea appeared to deemed it necessary to expand on it.

"Who else but me can make you understand what a danger you are to everyone around you? It's my civic duty!"

Reclining his head against the tree's trunk, Shizuo shook his head before honey-brown orbs fell upon Izaya once again. "I already know I'm dangerous, so stop with this shit already." Instead of the nasty comment he was expecting in return, Izaya's smirk grew wider and the madness in the man's eyes only seemed to intensify.

"No, you really don't. Not yet anyway, but I'll help you understand," Izaya chuckled darkly and put some distance between the two of them. "Kasuka, your beloved little bro―"

"What about him?" Shizuo pushed himself away from the tree and took a step in Izaya's direction before he managed to stop himself. "If you dare hurt him again, I will kill you," he growled threateningly.

Izaya infinitesimally backed away, the angry beast frightening him just a tiny bit. "You're the one who hurt him, Shizu-chan, not me."

"Spare me the bullshit. Kasuka doesn't deserve to get hurt because of what I did to you," Shizuo snapped and balled his hands into fists. "You said you would leave him out of this, bastard!"

"This has nothing to do with me, Shizu-chan, nothing at all. I just happen to possess some information that might interest you, and since I'm such a nice guy, I'll give you a hint. It happened back when you were growing up," Izaya revealed in delighted malevolence.

Shizuo growled once again but fought to control himself. "What the fuck are you trying to say?"

"I believe poor Kasuka is mentally scarred because of what happened to him," Izaya commented with a pitying sigh. "There really is no wonder he turned out the way he did."

Many horrifying thoughts went through Shizuo's head and he didn't even realize when his hand shot out and he tried to grab Izaya, the flea jumping away in an instant as if to prove how much he deserved his nickname. In the next moment, Izaya was running away and Shizuo was chasing after him, his body moving on its own accord. He kept telling himself that he wouldn't hurt Izaya, that he'd only catch him and make him reveal what he knew; and yet he couldn't help but fear his own reaction once he caught him. Izaya was the absolute champion when it came to bringing out the worst in him, and no matter how many promises he'd made or how many times he'd said sorry, he still hated the bastard just as much as before if not more.

Reluctantly, he came to the conclusion that making Izaya talk was the only chance he had at ever finding out the truth, especially when Kasuka had stopped answering his calls right after the whole Slon incident. Despite how wrong it felt to chase Izaya once again, Shizuo kept running after him through Ikebukuro's streets and he couldn't help but feel nauseous as his thoughts went back to that accursed chase that had ended so horribly wrong. Back then he'd also been pissed because of Kasuka, and he clung to that information to make sure that he wouldn't do more than ask Izaya what he knew.

Luckily, it looked like Izaya was sticking to the main streets this time around, and even though the people walking by were making his task of apprehending the flea harder, Shizuo was glad that the two of them weren't anywhere near some dirty and poorly illuminated alley. It almost seemed like Izaya had learned his lesson, although to refer to what had happened that night as a lesson made him sick to his stomach. Pain and fear were primitive methods of disciplining, and Shizuo despised himself for ever thinking that was a good idea. Since then, the two of them had succeeded in having a few decent conversations here and there, and it made Shizuo curse his stupidity even more because their honest discussions only served to prove that the two of them could talk like human beings instead of fighting like animals. With that thought in mind, he decided that no matter how much he might be tempted to beat the insect to a bloody pulp, he would not under any circumstances resort to violence. The temptation to uproot a stop sign and hit Izaya with it was very high though, but Shizuo managed to control himself. "Flea, stop running!" he tried, but Izaya only laughed.

"No way, Shizu-chan! Let's just say that... I've learned my 'lesson?'"

As the words reached his ears, Shizuo nearly stumbled. He almost stopped chasing Izaya, but the need to know what had happened to Kasuka kept pushing him forward. Izaya seemed a bit slower than usual, but he was still much faster than Shizuo ever hoped to be and Ikebukuro's beast couldn't have been more surprised at almost running into Izaya when the insect suddenly stopped. Their eyes met for only a moment before Shizuo's right hand shot straight towards the pale neck and he pinned the smaller man to the hood of a car. Surprisingly, Izaya wasn't trying to get away. "Tell me!" Shizuo demanded.

"Would you m-mind holding this for m-me?" Izaya struggled to speak, sounding out of breath, as he pushed something into the blond's hand.

Shizuo stared dumbly. "Huh...?" and his eyes widened in confusion when they fell upon the object in his hand. He thought he heard voices behind him, but he couldn't focus when all he could see was the bloody switchblade in his palm. His eyes traveled back to Izaya and that's when he noticed the cut on the insect's thin arm and the blood trickling on the hood of the car. "What is this...?"

"Me s-setting you up a-again," Izaya chuckled, and just as Shizuo's eyes fell upon the malevolent smirk on the raven's face, the voices behind him finally became clear.

"PUT THE KNIFE DOWN, NOW!"

For a moment, Shizuo saw red and he tightened the grip around the insect's neck, but something inside of him stopped him from snapping it. He'd been tricked again, and as he unclenched his fingers from around the now bruised throat, he growled at Izaya, wishing nothing more than to wipe that disgusting smirk off of the bastard's face. He took a step backwards and raised his arms, not in the mood to fight the officers and maybe get into more trouble than Izaya had already gotten him into. Despite the burning anger he was experiencing, he didn't fight back when he was cuffed. As if things weren't already bad enough, he finally realized that he was in front of a police station and that he'd pinned the disgusting louse to a police car. At that moment, it crossed his mind that perhaps Izaya had made up the whole Kasuka story to lure him there and he almost sighed in relief at the thought. He didn't try to run as they dragged him into the building, nor did he cause any troubles when they roughly pushed him into an empty cell, the only sign of protest being a low growl. He paced the small space a few times before he sat down on the cold floor, but unfortunately, the silence was shattered by the door opening and Izaya walking in like he owned the place.

"I asked them to give me a few minutes with you."

Shizuo snorted and glared up at the flea from where he was sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall. "You're cutting yourself now, flea? Are you really this messed up?"

A dark chuckle resonated throughout the mostly empty space and Izaya took that last step towards the cell and grabbed the bars with both hands, his eyes burning with hatred as he glared at the blond. "While it's true that I've always been somewhat messed up," Izaya admitted, "your recent actions have created this new me. I've already told you that I can't forget, so please, do rejoice, Shizu-chan, it's what you wanted deep down inside no matter how much you try to deny it."

"I didn't wa―"

"If you dare finish that sentence, I swear that I will destroy everyone and everything you hold dear!" Izaya warned, his knuckles turning white with how hard he was holding the bars.

Shizuo scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing that it was all a nightmare and that he could wake up from it. He believed Izaya capable of doing that and much more, so he knew well enough not to further anger him. "What is it that you want from me?" he asked without even lifting his head.

"Everyone dies, beast, but death is too easy of a punishment for you." Shizuo stayed silent, so Izaya loosened his tight hold on the bars and took a step backwards. "Aren't you going to ask me about Kasuka?"

When Shizuo raised his head, their eyes met, and they stared at each other for a long time. "No," Shizuo finally answered. "I know that you only said that to rile me up because you wanted me to get arrested."

With a dark chuckle, Izaya gripped the bars again and leaned closer until his head was touching the cold metal. "You belong in prison, with rapists and murderers. If your brother hadn't helped me that night, I'd most likely be dead and buried right now."

Shizuo got up and moved towards Izaya until he was standing right in front of him, the steel bars being the only things separating them. "I may belong here, but so do you," he sneered and fisted a hand into the front of Izaya's jacket, his eyes slightly widening in surprise when the other didn't even try to pull away.

"I'll never get caught no matter what I do," Izaya promised, eyes glowing as a dark smirk spread across his face, "unlike you..." and he kept on smirking as he unclenched one hand from around the bars and wrapped his fingers around Shizuo's wrist. "My battered body was a testimony to your violence, not to mention that you were stupid enough to leave evidence of your... sordid activities behind, so had I called an ambulance that night, you would be rotting in prison right now."

"But you didn't because of your pride."

Izaya shrugged. "We all have our flaws."

"You need help, flea... professional help."

"Tch!"

"Whatever," Shizuo muttered before shoving him away. "Leave, before I make you leave."

"Shizu-chan is sooo sca~ary!" Izaya gasped in mock-surprise with a bravado he didn’t quite feel. "Well, I'll see you around," he waved before he turned around and walked away, his dark chuckle resonating throughout the hallway.

***

"I love you," Shinra murmured against the naked skin of Celty's breasts as he laid soft kisses on her chest. He almost growled in frustration at being unable to use both his hands to explore her divine body and he inwardly cursed Shizuo for being the cause of his current problem. His beautiful Dullahan was sprawled on the bed before him, with her back leaning against his pillows and her long legs resting on either of his sides. A soft sound of appreciation left his lips when more of the black smoke retreated, only to reveal her flat stomach and alluring hips. He almost couldn't believe that his beloved Dullahan would soon be his, and as his gaze roamed over her perfect body, he couldn't help but lick his lips in anticipation.

[Stop staring!] she typed on her PDA after grabbing it from the nightstand. Before she could even show it to him, she covered her naked breasts with an arm, almost dropping the device when a predatory smirk spread across his face.

"The sight of you like this is picture perfect, so can you blame me for admiring such ravishing beauty?" Shinra asked as he seized her wrist and pulled her arm away, his lips descending on a pink nub before he released her and he grabbed her other breast. As if on cue, she arched beneath his touch, his skilled hand and wet tongue swirling around her nipple making her squirm. Momentarily abandoning her breasts, he trailed wet kisses up her chest while he skimmed her skin, exploring her shoulder, her arm and the deep curve of her thin waist, until he dared to let his wandering hand go lower and he caressed her inner thigh. He almost burst into happiness when he felt nimble fingers run through his hair, as though Celty was telling him to go on, but it wasn't until she placed her other hand on his back and she started pulling at his T-shirt that he finally dared to move his hand up her leg. He was close, so close, but he didn't succeed in reaching his target because her phone rang right at that moment. He momentarily froze, waiting to see what she'd do, and when she released her grip on his T-shirt and lightly pushed him away to check her PDA, he barely suppressed a sob from climbing up his throat and slipping past his lips.

[I have to go.]

"What?! Right now??" he screeched, his voice sounding desperate and pathetic at the same time. "Why...?"

[Izaya wants to meet me. He said it was important.]

Shinra growled possessively as he captured her wrist, but his angry expression turned soft again when she raised her hand and caressed his jaw. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into her palm, Celty's enticing scent filling his nostrils and making him want to never let go. He heard the sound of keys being pressed and he opened his eyes just in time to see her pick up the PDA from the bed.

[I'll be back as soon as I can.]

"Since when do you care?"

[?]

"About Izaya..." he clarified and then watched her pull back her hand at the same time that her black smoke covered her chest.

[He's pitiful.]

"Don't tell him that," Shinra advised as he retrieved his glasses from the nightstand.

[I know, don't worry. I'll see you later.]

He simply sat there motionless until he heard the door open and then close before he finally allowed his body to collapse on the bed. At least he didn't have to rush to the bathroom, the mere mention of Izaya's name making him lose his erection.

***

Celty thought it was a bit strange that Izaya had asked her to meet him at the police station, especially when Izaya knew how much she feared the men in uniform, but it wasn't until she got there that she realized something was wrong. She immediately noticed the cut in the jacket's sleeve and the bandages beneath, as well as the blood soaking the material. For a moment, she almost forgot about her fears.

[What happened??]

"Ah, you see, Shizu-chan and I had a fight―"

[He did this?!]

"If you want to talk to him, I can make it happen," Izaya proposed in an attempt to avoid answering the question. "Besides, I know how worried you must be now that he's locked up like the animal that he is."

[That's not why I want to see him.]

Izaya chuckled darkly and leaned against the building. "Oh, please, Courier-san, we both know that no matter what you say, you won't really abandon him. I finally understood it the last time we met."

[What are you talking about...?]

"You made sure I understood that I am the architect of my own destruction."

[That's not why I said it!] she rushed to answer, her PDA almost slipping through her fingers as she pushed it into his face.

Izaya read the text, cocked his head to the side and regarded the Dullahan with a hateful gleam in his eyes. "Oh?"

[Bad things happen whenever the two of you meet.]

Izaya shook his head and sighed loudly before pushing himself away from the wall and heading towards the door, but he ended up stopping in his tracks when he felt Celty's hand on his shoulder.

[It was not my intention to place the blame on you,] she told him once he turned to face her. [I really think that the two of you should stay away from one another.] [Just look at what he did to you!]

"You can keep on lying to yourself, Courier-san, but please stop wasting my precious time and follow me already," Izaya said flatly before he opened the door with his uninjured arm and stepped inside.

Despite how reluctant she was about going inside, Celty knew that Izaya wouldn't ask it of her if she was in any sort of danger of being captured, so she followed after him with her shoulders sagged and her head bowed, regret and shame weighing heavily on her conscience.

***

After Izaya left, Shizuo went back to sitting on the floor with his back against the wall opposite the barred door. He kept staring ahead for a while, until he heard footsteps approaching and his vision finally focused enough to see Izaya walking down the hallway with Celty in tow. He immediately got up and rushed to the bars, wondering what the hell was going on because he couldn't understand for the life of him why Izaya would bring her there. It made no sense that she would come inside when she was so terrified by the police for always chasing her around Ikebukuro.

"I thought Shizu-chan would feel lonely, so I brought Courier-san to keep him company," Izaya answered the question before the blond even had a chance to voice it.

The bars rattled when Shizuo suddenly gripped them and Izaya had to fight the urge to take a step backwards when he noticed the murderous light in those honey-brown eyes. Those steel bars were not enough to hold Ikebukkuro's beast if Shizuo decided he'd had enough.

"Get lost," Shizuo growled, but Celty typed something on her PDA as she approached him.

[He stays.]

"Fine," Shizuo muttered before he released his hold on the bars. "You shouldn't be here."

[Don't worry about it,] she told him, but her hands still shook with fine tremors.

"Let me guess, he told you that I attacked him again? Because if he did, then he's a lying piece of shit."

Celty turned to Izaya and then back to Shizuo, her whole posture screaming confusion besides the dread she was already feeling.

"I never said that," Izaya clarified with a shrug.

"He cut himself, Celty!" Shizuo sneered and immediately pointed at the disgusting flea standing five feet away from him.

[What?!]

"Well, you see, Shizu-chan attacked me first," he tried in an attempt to defend himself.

Shizuo glared at Izaya for a full minute before addressing Celty. "I didn't attack him. I just wanted him to leave Kasuka alone and to tell me what he knew."

Izaya snorted while Celty was so confused that she didn't even know what to say anymore.

"You pinned me to a police car, you protozoan! That means you attacked me no matter how you try to justify it," Izaya snapped and barely stopped himself from pulling out his other switchblade and planting in the middle of Shizuo's forehead.

"I'm sorry if I'm a little touchy when it comes to my brother, especially after what happened," Shizuo hissed, the metal slightly bending beneath his fingers.

Izaya laughed, but what he really felt was spite. "At least I didn't go through with it."

Celty continued to watch the exchange between the two adversaries, not daring to interrupt them.

"You still almost got him rap―" Shizuo snarled, but before he could finish the sentence he clasped a hand over his mouth, both he and Izaya now staring at the frozen Dullahan.

[You what...?] she asked after she turned around to face the smaller man, black smoke spilling from beneath her helmet and snapping back and forth in the air.

Izaya backed away and raised his hands in a placating gesture, the sides of his mouth quirking upwards into a nervous smile. "I admit that I convinced someone to do it for me, but I changed my mind and in the end I saved Kasuka from a fate similar to my own. I still let Shizu-chan believe for a few hours that his precious little brother got raped because this beast here deserves to suffer," he spat as he threw Shizuo a disgusted look.

Celty's thoughts immediately went back to the day when Izaya had asked her to deliver Kasuka to Shizuo and she finally understood why the older Heiwajima had tried to kill himself that time.

[You shouldn't have done that,] she told Izaya.

Izaya lowered his hands before he leaned against the wall. "Can you really blame me, Courier-san? You were the one who cleaned the blood off my bathroom's floor and tub, and you were one of the three people who saw the shape I was in right after Shizu-chan finished playing with me, so you shouldn't be so surprised that I sought revenge."

Celty somewhat understood where he was coming from, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Shizuo and Izaya being in proximity to one another only made things worse and it strengthened her belief that nothing good would ever come out of their encounters.

[You need to stay away from each other,] she first told Shizuo and then Izaya, and while the first nodded, the second shook his head.

"How else would I punish Shizu-chan, hmm? I'm open to suggestions," he snickered and approached the bars, meeting Shizuo's stare with a glare of his own and a nasty smirk.

"Screw you, bastard!" Shizuo snapped.

Izaya sighed and slipped a hand into the pocket of the jacket where he kept the spare switchblade. "I already told you I rather you didn't since you really sucked at it."

"That's not what I―" Shizuo tried to defend himself, but he ended up swallowing his next words when Celty raised a hand, effectively silencing him.

[I think I've had enough,] she declared, the black smoke surrounding her taking on a more threatening demeanor.

Both Shizuo and Izaya seemed to move closer to one another so that the two of them could read her words at the same time.

[You're both children, and I refuse to be a part of your games.]

"Courier-san, I―"

[Shut up, Izaya! I don't want to hear another word from you!]

"Celty, listen―"

[Silence!]

Shizuo immediately clicked his mouth shut, the murderous aura he felt radiating from the Dullahan making him worry for his safety. He knew better than to underestimate Celty.

[I'm done with the both of you. Don't ever look for me again.]

"But Courier-san―" Izaya tried, but he ended up flinching when her hand shot up to the bar beside his head before she slowly pulled it back to type her last message to them.

[Not another word,] and with that Celty turned around and stormed out of the building, having realized that she couldn't help people who didn't want to be helped.

Chapter 42: Louder than Words

Both Shizuo and Izaya stared at Celty's retreating back, gaping. They'd never seen the Dullahan so angry before, not even when Shizuo had tried to chase her away by acting like a complete monster.

"I must confess, I didn't expect that," Izaya reluctantly admitted, not yet realizing that he was too close to the cage until Shizuo grabbed both his arms and slammed him into the bars, gripping both wrists behind his back with one hand and covering his mouth with the other before Izaya even had a chance to react. He moaned in pain when his injured arm made contact with the metal and he couldn't help but violently shudder at the feel of the beast's hand upon his person. The horrifying knowledge that he was at Shizuo's mercy again nearly made his vision waver, unadulterated terror spreading through his veins like wildfire. A pathetic whimper nearly escaped him, but he managed to swallow it before the monster breathing against his nape could hear it.

"Unlike your venomous mouth, your body never lies," Shizuo said right before he moved the hand covering Izaya's mouth down the man's neck and then lower, until it was resting right above the wildly beating heart. "This right here," and he pressed harder on Izaya's chest, but not hard enough to hurt him, "speaks louder than words. You prance around and act all high and mighty, like nothing can touch you, but deep down inside, you're scared shitless."

"I'm n-not―"

"You are, and the more you try to pretend that you're fine, the more you're hurting yourself. Listen to me, flea, you need help."

"What I n-need is for Shizu-chan to take his disgusting paws off my person," Izaya tried to say in a calm, confident tone, but his voice still betrayed him with its slight quiver. To his surprise, Shizuo released him, and without the beast's strong hands to support him, he ended up sliding down the bars, trembling knees bending under the weight of his body before he managed to pull push himself up and scramble away. He took out the switchblade and flicked it open before he was even fully facing Shizuo, the terrified look in his eyes morphing into one of burning hatred and anger.

For a few moments, Shizuo simply watched Izaya, as if to confirm that his assumptions about the man had been right. "These games are hurting you a lot more than you're hurting me by playing them."

"If you're trying to convince me to back down, then―"

"I don't even blame Celty for finally deciding she's had enough," Shizuo interrupted him. "You should listen to her advice and stay away from me." Resting his forearms on the bars, he sighed tiredly before continuing. "You've ruined my life for the sake of your own sick amusement and you even managed to bring out the monster I didn't even knew existed... what more do you want, Izaya? What will it take for you to end this game we've been playing for so many years? If it's my head that you want, then come and get it," Shizuo offered, if only to keep Izaya from breaking his word and going after Kasuka, but the Informant's sardonic smile only served to enforce the belief that Izaya couldn't have cared less about anything he had to say.

"Shizu-chan, you still don’t get it, do you? I could've taken your head years ago."

"Then why didn't you?" Shizuo growled.

Slightly relaxing, Izaya finally lowered the switchblade and slipped it into the right pocket of his jacket. "The answer is quite simple, but I guess that a protozoan like you would never be able to figure it out by himself."

"If you think that I'm so dumb, then why don't you explain it to me so that I'll finally understand, hah?"

"Monsters are monsters and they shouldn't act like humans, but at least Shizu-chan now knows he's a monster, so it won't be long now."

"It won't be long before what?"

"You'll see~" Izaya sang before he turned on his heels and took one step in the direction of the door. "Ah, and try not to escape, ne? You'd only be hurting Courier-san, since the police might think of her as an accomplice or something; you never know," Izaya added as he walked away chuckling, leaving a fuming Shizuo to spew insults at him for getting Celty involved.

***

After assuring one of the officers who had arrested Shizuo that he would go to the hospital and get the injury taken care of, Izaya walked out of the police station and took out his phone to call a cab, but he changed his mind and instead headed towards the train station. Cab drivers were never fond of taking injured clients and he was not in the mood to deal with something like that. Besides, the cut was superficial, he'd made sure of that, and the bandages tightly wrapped around his arm by one of the officers ensured that he wouldn't bleed to death.

Izaya still couldn't get over Celty's reaction. He'd called her there to finally get her to admit―among other things―that she could never abandon Shizuo, but instead of her facing the truth, she ended up running away. It didn't really matter though because her punishment would still be the same. Izaya never really believed that Celty would shun Shizuo and take his side, but a tiny part of him had still hoped that the Dullahan would choose him. You really should've picked me, Courier-san, he thought spitefully once he caught sight of a random motorcycle passing by just as he was about to cross the street.

"Oi, Izaya," he heard someone call his name, and when he turned his head in the direction of the voice, he saw Kadota leaning against the van and Erika waving at him with a disgusting leer that for some reason made him feel dirty.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I have some things to take care of, so if you'll excuse me..." Izaya tried in an attempt to escape before it was too late since he didn't want to be anywhere near the fujoshi, but Kadota pushed himself away from the van and approached him. "Really, Dotachin, I'm busy, take a hint," Izaya added, feeling slightly annoyed.

"What happened?" Kadota asked, his eyes glued to the injured arm.

Izaya simply shrugged, in no way in the mood to explain anything to someone like Kadota who had no business concerning himself with his person to begin with.

"I'll give you a ride home, come on," Kadota said, but he ended up frowning when Izaya flinched from his touch after he'd placed a hand on the Informant's shoulder. "You must've gotten hurt pretty badly, huh?"

Izaya inwardly cursed before he forced a smile on his face. "Only a little," he lied and hoped that Dotachin bought it.

Kadota nodded and then steered Izaya towards the van. "One more reason to let us give you a ride home."

Seeing how Dotachin was unrelenting, Izaya finally nodded and got into the van, though he ended up scrunching his nose in disgust when his eyes fell upon the cover of what was obviously one of the fujoshi's perverted man on man action manga.

Erika, who was watching his every move, nearly squealed in delight. "If Izayan is interested in some new positions to try out with Shizu-Shizu, I, Karisawa Erika, will gladly relinquish my ownership of this beautiful Yaoi manga," she spoke solemnly.

"I'm leaving," Izaya said flatly, his expression blank as he moved to get out of the van, but he ended up wincing when Kadota slammed the door in his face.

"We're very sorry," Walker apologized in everyone's name while he grabbed a struggling Erika from behind, pulled her into his lap and covered her mouth with his hand. "I'll make sure she stays quiet," he assured their guest.

Izaya had to admit that he quite liked the sight of a fuming Karisawa Erika trying to break free, so he agreed to be given a ride home if only to see the accursed fujoshi having a hard time because of him. If he was lucky enough, he might even come up with an idea to punish the woman for her disgusting words by the time they stopped in front of his apartment building.

"I've heard you're back to fighting Shizuo," Kadota commented to break the silence. "Well, it's not like you ever really stopped, but the place was quiet for a while, after you got hurt."

"Yes, I guess I'm back. I'm sure everyone is ecstatic," he said mockingly.

"At least Karisawa-san is," Walker laughed sheepishly.

Izaya actually snickered, and for some strange reason, he didn't really mind being in that van with the four of them, regardless of how much he wanted to carve the fujoshi's face for what had happened that time when he ended up getting stabbed because of her. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a lot of things were the fujoshi's fault, including the kiss he'd been forced to give Shizuo. He would've never been captured that day by the men Ueda's brothers had sent if he wasn't having a panic attack as a result of running into Karisawa and hearing her speculate about his relationship with Shizuo. Perhaps I should burn her manga stash, he thought evilly and snickered, making the rest of the occupants wonder what he found so amusing. "Just something I remembered," he brushed off their questioning looks with a flick of his hand.

***

As expected, Namie was still there by the time Izaya got home and he couldn't help but smile sheepishly when she squinted her eyes and glared at his arm as thought it had somehow offended her.

"What have you done now?" she grumbled tiredly before she stood up from her chair behind the desk and went to retrieve the first aid kit.

Izaya gingerly took off the bloody jacket and the T-shirt and let them fall on the floor before he sat down on the couch. "Why does Namie-san always think that it's my fault whenever something bad happens?" he pouted and folded his arms across his chest, but he instantly regretted it when pain flared from the cut and he ended up hissing and cursing under his breath while slowly unfolding them.

Namie came back a few moments later, shaking her head disapprovingly and pushing the Othello board further towards the edge of the coffee table in order to make room for the first aid kit. "Because it usually is," she answered flatly and sat down as well, completely ignoring his offended look.

"Is it so hard to believe that sometimes I really am innocent?" he sighed, exasperated.

"You, innocent?" Namie snorted and roughly gripped the injured arm, making Izaya wince. "You're anything but innocent," she stated and then proceeded to unwrap the bloody bandage so that she could properly clean the cut.

"My life is so sad," Izaya cried in mock-hurt. "Not even my housewife trusts me."

"I'm not your housewife," Namie hissed between gritted teeth and violently pulled the bandage off the wound, making Izaya cry out in both pain and surprise. "I'm only here for the paychecks and that's the only reason you're still alive," she informed him with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

A shudder of both delight and fear shook Izaya's body and he'd never been more grateful that such a woman was one of his humans. "I guess I have no choice but to keep those paychecks coming," he said, amused, but he ended up drawing in a sharp breath when Namie poured some antiseptic on a piece of gauze and harshly rubbed it into the wound. "I'm never letting Namie-san take care of my injuries again," he hissed through clenched teeth and then glared at the woman when she simply shrugged.

"Tell me, Namie-san," he asked once his eyes drifted over to the Othello board and he leaned forward to pick up the Queen piece, Namie immediately scolding him for not standing still.

"Tell you what?" she eventually asked when Izaya seemed deep in thought as he kept gazing at the Chess piece instead of asking the question.

"How would you pick between two evils?"

"Can I pick neither?"

"No, you have to pick one," Izaya answered flatly.

"I would choose the one who'd benefit me more," she answered without hesitation.

Izaya couldn't help but cackle. There really was no wonder he got along so well with her. "What if neither brought you any benefits?" he then continued, smirking.

"The one less tedious."

Izaya burst into laughter, making Namie's task of bandaging his wound harder.

"Stop moving!" she snapped and tightened her grip around his arm until he stopped laughing and instead ended up grunting in pain. "Are you talking about yourself and Heiwajima Shizuo?" She immediately felt him tense, his shoulders rising and his expression morphing into one she couldn't read at all.

"What makes you think that?"

Namie shrugged. "Makes sense."

Staring blankly ahead, Izaya answered with an emotionless, "I see," before he wrenched his arm out of her hold and stood up. "Thank you for the help; you can go home now."

Namie stood up, went to retrieve her bag and then headed towards the door. "You might be tedious, but the benefits are high."

Izaya gazed at her retreating back until she disappeared behind the door, a small smile replacing his frown. "Really, Namie-san, even after all this time, you still manage to surprise me," he said out loud, but the smile was soon replaced by a sneer when his eyes fell upon the Queen piece in his hand.

"Tch!" Feeling pissed off again, he tossed the piece towards the coffee table, and when it slid down the shiny surface and then fell down on the floor, he simply shrugged and picked up his discarded jacket from where he fished his phone.

"Orihara Izaya here," he spoke in a business-like tone.

"Ah, Orihara-san! Have you decided when you want it done?" the man on the other end asked in a honeyed voice.

"Wait a couple of days, and then mention it to him in passing, just like we've discussed."

"Understood!"

"Good," and with that he ended the call and placed the phone on his desk before moving towards the place where he kept Celty's head, a blood-thirsty smile splitting his face in two.

"Don't worry, Dullahan," he told Celty's head as he picked it up from the glass container and moved to his desk chair where he sat down, "I'm not going to hurt you. It's just an innocent little game, so don't hate me too much, ne?" he said before he lowered his arms and drew the head to his naked chest. "I'm still hoping to one day become your chosen warrior," he added right before he started humming an indecipherable song while he slowly swiveled in his chair and gently ran his fingers through Celty's hair.

***

After leaving the police station, Celty drove around Ikebukuro for a while to clear her thoughts. She felt heartbroken and she didn't want Shinra to see her like that, especially when she knew how much he worried about her. Unfortunately, he immediately picked up on her mood the moment she arrived home and he got up from the couch to greet her.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, worry crossing his face.

[I haven't felt so lost in a very long time,] Celty confessed, and Shinra immediately pulled her to his chest and awkwardly hugged her with one arm, his broken one stuck between them.

"What happened?" He proceeded to gently caress her back, the small tremors he felt beneath his fingers making him wonder if Izaya had done something to her. He didn't put it past the Informant, and the fact that he'd been the one to ask her to meet up with him made Izaya even more suspicious in Shinra's eyes. "What did he do?" he heard himself hiss, and when he realized that Celty's tremors only increased in intensity, he steered her towards the couch and sat her down with him.

After a few minutes of clinging to Shinra's shirt, she felt ready to answer, so she pulled away from his embrace and typed on her PDA. [Shizuo got arrested again.]

Shinra stiffened. "Did he... hurt Izaya?" he asked even though he was afraid to hear the answer.

[Not more than Izaya hurt himself.]

"What does―" Before he could even finish asking the question though, Celty already had the answer typed out.

[It sounded to me like Izaya hurt himself to frame Shizuo for the attack, but I can't be sure.]

"You're not sure?" he asked in disbelief.

[They were too busy fighting each other to pay any attention to what I was saying.]

Sighing, Shinra fixed his glasses before he ran a hand through his hair in annoyance. "How did he hurt himself exactly?"

[There were bandages on his arm.]

"That idiot..." Shinra shook his head, drowning in worry, anger, frustration and irritation, all at the same time. "He probably has no one to take care of him," he then added, feeling the urge to get up and run to Izaya's aid. He didn't though, not when he could still clearly remember their last meeting. If he went to help him, Izaya would simply call him a hypocrite and kick him out, or worse, maybe even hurt him, or hurt Celty to get back at him. A terrifying realization lodged itself into his mind and he nearly shuddered as he formulated the question. "If you say you saw Shizuo... then perhaps... you went inside a police station?"

Celty did shudder though and her fingers shook horribly when she typed. [I had to see Shizuo.]

"What were you thinking??" Shinra nearly screeched, but he ended up swallowing his next words when he realized that he should be comforting his beloved Dullahan instead of scolding her. "Are you okay?" he asked hesitantly and placed a hand on her shoulder.

[I'm fine. I don't think Izaya would've called me there if he believed I was in danger.]

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Shinra remarked bitterly. "You don't know him like I do. The more he cares about something or someone, the worse the destruction will be when things don't go his way."

[I believe Izaya's intention was to hurt Shizuo.]

Shinra forced a smile on his face in an attempt to hide the worry eating at him. He had a feeling that Izaya would seek retribution on him for almost choking him to death, and what better way to punish his attacker than by hurting the woman Shinra loved more than anything in the world?

"You were the only person I never would've hurt," Izaya's words seared though his heart like a hot iron pike and he had to all over again fight off the impulse to run to Shinjuku.

[I'm not sure what to think of Izaya anymore,] she confessed. [I... found out about what he tried to do to Kasuka.]

Shinra cringed despite himself, especially after he'd tried his hardest to forget that the events of that day had ever happened. "The fact that he couldn't go through with it is one of the reasons why he's so broken up about it."

With the last piece of the puzzle finally in place, Celty was finally starting to understand why Izaya was having such a hard time. The Informant was the type of person to deal a swift and devastating punishment to anyone who crossed him, but after failing to do that to Shizuo, Izaya now found himself tearing into the man like an angry animal doing it out of pure spite. If he wanted Shizuo dead, he would've killed him already, but the blond was still very much alive which meant that Izaya had no intention of going that far. [I've realized something today.]

"Hmm?"

[We can't help them.]

Frowning, Shinra tilted his head to the side and watched her curiously, wondering what she meant by that. She was taking her time writing out the words, so he waited, watching her type and erase several times before finally sharing her thoughts.

[I told them to never look for me again.]

"You can't be serious!" Shinra's eyes widened in disbelief.

[You can't help those who don't want to be helped. As things are, Izaya is using us to hurt Shizuo while Shizuo is trying to chase me away by acting like a monster.]

"He is a monster," Shinra hissed between clenched teeth.

[Yes, he is,] Celty agreed. [Both are monsters.] It was something she had come to realize while she was watching them fight back at the police station.

Shinra opened his mouth to argue that Izaya wasn't one, but he couldn't do it, not when he knew just how twisted the Informant was. "But what Shizuo did is just sick―" he tried to at least defend the man, but he couldn't finish the sentence after reading the words on the PDA.

[You and I are monsters too.]

Most people would've felt offended by that statement, but Shinra was more worried that she would call herself a monster than by being called one. "Celty darling, you are not a monster," he tried to assure her while raising a hand to pull her into a hug.

Celty shook her helmet and gently pushed away his hand. [We are all monsters in our own way.]

"We are, aren't we?" Shinra knew that he himself was one, at least to everyone else, but he never really saw anything wrong with being who he was, and even though Celty had tried to change him, she still loved him―or so he liked to believe―just as much as he loved her.

[It's one of the reasons the four of us gravitated towards one another.]

"I guess that our dysfunctional relationship is quite unique," Shinra sighed softly, "but I still don't understand why you'd tell them to never look for you again. Without us to serve as a deterrent, they will completely destroy each other."

[I don't think so, even though I can't be one-hundred percent sure.]

"I don't understand."

[I found Izaya in front of our apartment building a few days ago, just sitting there on the sidewalk's curb, curled into a tight ball and looking miserable.]

Shinra didn't even know he was gaping until Celty gently tapped his chin. He felt flustered for a second, but he pushed that aside and focused on the problem at hand. He'd known that Izaya was broken and lonely, but he had no idea it was that bad. "I need to see him," he rushed to tell her, but when he tried to get up, Celty placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.

[Wait, please. Before you decide to go to him, at least listen to what I have to say first.]

"Anything for my darling," Shinra said sweetly.

[Thank you.]

Shinra smiled, even though on the inside he was quite worried.

[Izaya is too proud to admit that he needs help and Shizuo despises himself too much to ask for it because he doesn't believe he deserves it.]

"The only thing Shizuo deserves is a slow, painful death," Shinra snarled, his blood boiling at the simple mention of that name.

Even though a part of her felt the instinct to defend Shizuo, she mercilessly squashed it down because she needed to be objective, or as close as she could get to something as unattainable as true objectivity. [There was a time when I believed that Izaya deserved a slow, painful death for trying to get Shizuo killed.]

"But that's different!" Shinra argued.

[Yes, but even so, Izaya is no less of a monster now than he was before.]

"Tch! He might not be a good person, but at least he saved Kasuka instead of going through with his plan." It was not easy to fold his arms across his chest while one of them was broken, but Shinra still managed to do it anyway.

[Exactly! Izaya is not as bad as I thought he was, and Shizuo is not as good as I thought he was, but both were or are our friends and it feels wrong to run away from this, no matter how much we want to do it.]

Shinra frowned. "You're the one who told them to never look for you again."

[Humans don't seem to realize how precious something is until they've lost it. Izaya takes you for granted, but that will soon change.]

[As for Shizuo, he wants me to stay away from him, so I will grant him his wish. After what he did, I find it hard to even look at him. Besides, I need some time to reflect on my own feelings.]

Shinra inclined his head, looking pensive, until the wheels in his brain started to turn. "So you're saying that we need to ignore Izaya and let him come to us?"

[Yes.]

"I don't know... it seems risky. He's simply too proud to admit that he needs help."

[I wouldn't be too sure about that.]

"It's more likely that the two of them will kill each other before that happens."

[I don't think they will go that far. If they really wanted to kill each other, they would've done it by now.] Celty really believed that, but there was one more thing she needed to tell Shinra. [To be honest, I sometimes really want to run away because dealing with it is much harder than pretending the problem doesn't exist.]

Shinra unfolded his arms and gently rubbed her shoulder. "I know, me too."

[I feel like a horrible person for wanting it. A part of me meant those words,] Celty confessed, and her shoulders sagged under the weight of her guilt.

The sight of his beloved looking so sad hurt him deeply and he sighed loudly before pulling her into a hug, this time refusing to let her go even after she started struggling in his hold. "We'll try it your way for a while, but if things end up taking a really bad turn, we're going to have to step in and put an end to it, one way or another."

With a nod of her helmet, Celty nestled into his arms and hoped that she hadn't just made the biggest mistake of her life.

"Be careful what you wish for, huh?" Shinra mused.

Notes:

Art (sketch) for this chapter on: deviantArt or tumblr.

Chapter 43: Master of Puppets

Even though it was past midnight, Izaya was still wide awake. It was one of those nights when the impulse to murder Shizuo was so overwhelming that he could hardly breathe and it took everything in his power to not go out and stab the beast in the heart... over, and over, and over again, until he'd bathe in its blood. His breath was coming out ragged as he nearly stumbled to his desk, and the moment he sat down in the chair, he tightly gripped the armrest with one hand and clawed at his throat with the other. It was suffocating, this feeling, and as he rotated the chair towards the window to view the city bellow, he saw himself in the reflection and his heart nearly stopped. He looked feral... the murderous stare, the trembling in his hands as he held himself back, the dangerous snarl, they were all signs that he was losing himself to the hatred incinerating him from deep within. He was letting his emotions get the best of him and that wasn't the Orihara Izaya he was supposed to be. Slowly, he pulled back the fingers from around his throat and placed his hand on the armrest, only then realizing just how badly his injured arm hurt.

Such episodes didn't happen often because he was usually very good at controlling his emotions, but once on a while something would trigger one. It was during such moments that he was really hating the man he had become. Earlier, he'd been flipping through the channels when he came upon a movie in which a man was dragging a woman deep into a dark alley. It wasn't that hard to guess what would happen next, and even though a voice in the back of his head had told him to change the channel, his finger had frozen above the remote control's Next button. Besides showing the woman's breasts, the scene wasn't extremely graphic, but the man's disgusting grunts and moans reminded him of the Shizuo from that night. What really got to him though were the woman's eyes and the tears sliding down her cheeks before stopping as they reached the man's hand clamped over her mouth. He realized that he must've looked like that too, and the idea of Orihara Izaya looking like that had made him see red.

It took him a good ten or so minutes to calm down afterwards. He wouldn't have been able to kill the monster inside the police station even if he wanted, and besides, a dead Shizuo wouldn't have that ridiculous expression of guilt on his face. A malevolent smile spread across his face and he turned to the desk to pick up the phone. It was the middle of the night but he didn't really care about that. He could've called in the evening, but he liked the idea of waking up Kasuka with bad news. The phone rang a few times before the man finally answered with an almost imperceptible irritation in his voice.

"How did you get this number?"

"Are you seriously asking me that question?" Izaya inquired before he let out a chuckle. There was silence for a few moments before Kasuka's voice was heard again, but this time it was in his usual flat tone.

"Did something happen?"

"You could say that..."

"Did my brother... do something?" Kasuka hesitantly asked.

"He's been arrested," Izaya chirped, sounding way too cheerful.

"On what charges?"

"You know where I live. Come by tomorrow at noon, otherwise your brother will end up in prison for a very long time," Izaya threatened, but his tone was more playful than anything else.

He did laugh though when Kasuka ended the call without another word; he had no doubts that the younger Heiwajima would rush back to Tokyo to save his precious brother from the big bad Orihara Izaya.

***

When he heard a knock on the door at exactly noon, Izaya had a hard time refraining from laughing out loud. He'd been wondering if Kasuka would be able to hold on for that long, especially when the monster's freedom was at stake, but apparently the freak had understood Izaya's message, which was to be there at that specific time or don't bother coming at all. He was so looking forward to messing with Kasuka that he nearly bounced to the door, and even though he knew that the freak would be able to read the obnoxious smirk he most likely had on his face, it didn't really bother him. His smirk grew when they came face to face, and even though the younger Heiwajima might've looked calm to anyone else, Izaya knew that couldn't be the case.

Kasuka didn't waste any time with small talk and instead walked in. "What happened?" he immediately inquired at the same time that he placed a plastic bag on the coffee table.

"Ne, ne, Kasu-chan, what's in the bag?" Izaya chirped, his eyes glued to the only other foreign object in his apartment.

"The clothes you so graciously lent me before. I haven't had an opportunity to give them back until now."

Izaya smirk fell and a shudder went up his spine at the thought of that coat being back in his house. He'd given it to Kasuka in the hope of never having to see it again, and now that thing was back to haunt him like the bad memory that it was. "You really didn't have to," he tried with a smile on his face, but he was certain that it must've looked forced. "I gave them to you after all."

"I don't need nor want anything from you," Kasuka said coldly. "I'm only here about my brother."

"I see, I see," Izaya said, his forced smile falling as well and leaving behind a frown. "Of course Kasu-chan only cares what happens to his precious nii-san, regardless of how much of a monster said nii-san is."

"If I didn't know him as well as I do, I'd probably agree with you," Kasuka admitted.

"But?" Izaya inquired with a sigh.

"I'm not ready to give up on him just yet."

"Then what will it take for you to give up on him?"

Kasuka looked him straight in the eyes as he gave his answer. "I don't know."

"Hn."

"Stop wasting my time and tell me what happened," Kasuka spoke with a calmness that he didn't exactly possess, but at least it didn't look like it was something serious because the Informant seemed to still be in one piece.

The corners of Izaya's lips quirked upwards and he couldn't help but chuckle as he recalled Shizuo's surprised expression when the protozoan had noticed the bloody switchblade in his hand. "I set your brother up," Izaya bubbled, letting the satisfaction he felt at having tricked the brute seep into his voice.

After a torturous long night, Kasuka felt himself relax; it was as though he could finally breathe. He didn't like to admit, but he didn't trust Shizuo to control his temper, not after what his brother had done to the Informant standing a few feet away from him. One of the reasons he'd disappeared and stopped answering Shizuo's calls was to not give the two archenemies more reasons to fight about, but it looked like even after removing himself from the picture, the two still clashed just like before. "I see," Kasuka finally said with a blank expression on his face.

"Are you upset? Do you perhaps want to hurt me for setting him up? Though I must warn you, I'm not injured anymore, so I can take you on now," Izaya said just as he slipped a hand into the right pocket of his pants where he kept his switchblade.

"Orihara-san, no, Izaya, that was self-defense, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't treat me like I'm some sort of criminal. Must I remind you who was the one threatening the other with a knife?" Regardless of how much he didn't want to fight, Kasuka was ready to take on the Informant if need be. He would never allow himself to get captured again, especially after what almost happened the last time he'd been careless around the man.

Izaya tried to shrug in a carefree manner, but he knew that he must've still looked tense. "Can you blame me after the things you said?"

"Can you blame me, after what you tried doing to me?"

"Ah, I see," Izaya said at the same time that he unwrapped his fingers from around the switchblade and pulled his hand out of the pocket. "Shizu-chan might've been right after all," he mused and motioned for Kasuka to sit down while he took a seat on the other couch.

"What are you talking about?" Kasuka didn't want to spend another second in Izaya's presence, but he knew he had no choice but to play the man's game if he wanted to get Shizuo out, so he reluctantly sat down and waited for the Informant to answer his question.

"Nothing, nothing," Izaya said absentmindedly before he managed to tear his eyes away from the plastic bag. "Anyway, let's not waste any more time than we already have. You want your precious nii-san to be released and I can make that happen, for a small price of course." He could almost sense the dread coming from the younger Heiwajima and he couldn't help but wonder what sort of wild scenarios were going through that seemingly emotionless head.

"What price?" Kasuka asked, immediately realizing with some surprise just how shaken his voice had sounded when compared to how he normally spoke, although he doubted that many would've noticed if they weren't a diabolic Informant going by the name of Orihara Izaya.

Izaya's grin almost split his face in two and he made sure to watch the other's every reaction as he spoke his next words. "Get down on your knees and blow me," he said just as he pointed to his crotch area. As expected, Kasuka looked appalled, the biggest giveaway being the nose scrunched up in disgust and the slightly widened eyes, the usual empty look now appearing to be filled with emotions that perhaps not even their usually numb owner could fully understand.

"No," came Kasuka's reply once he'd calmed down enough to at least be able to speak without sounding anything but his usual self. "I can't, no, I won't do that."

"I see... so this is what it takes for you to finally abandon him. I guess that you might really be nothing more than an emotionless freak after all," Izaya said, his voice sounding completely malicious and satisfied at the same time, as though he'd been expecting such an answer from the start. "Your beloved nii-san... no, perhaps not so beloved after all, would gladly die for you, and yet you can't do something as simple as give his archenemy a blowjob to get him out of jail. Kasu-chan, you're such a terrible brother!"

Kasuka was certain that accepting such an offer would be a mistake. Disgust aside, there were a thousand other reasons why he'd refused and one of them was above all others. "Shizuo would never forgive himself if I were to do such a thing for his sake. You really don't know my brother after all, because if you did, you'd know that he'd rather rot in jail if that was what it took to stop me from degrading myself in such a manner," Kasuka revealed the reason behind his refusal, hoping that the Informant would no longer bother him with such an offer. He expected the man to get angry at him, but instead Izaya burst into laughter, almost taking Kasuka by surprise.

"Ahh ha ha ha!" That was so funny, Kasu-chan, you should've seen your face just now! Ahh ha ha ha!" He was laughing so hard that his sides hurt and it took a full minute before he finally calmed down. "Your reaction was hilarious. Thank you for the good laugh!" Izaya chirped happily. Kasuka wasn't saying anything, so he continued. "It was just a joke. A j-o-k-e. Ah, really, I can't believe you actually took my words seriously," he mused, his expression turning serious again. "Even if you're a monster that I could never love, I still wouldn't make you do such a thing. That's why I keep saying your brother is the real monster here, but you don't seem to believe me." Some bitterness seeped into his words as he spoke, but it didn't really bother him as much as he thought it would. "I've come to realize something after my failed attempt at revenge. Do you know what that is?"

"No," came Kasuka's simple answer.

"There are some things that not even I, Orihara Izaya, can do. Now, knowing that, I've also realized one more thing." This time, Izaya got up from the couch and sat down next to Kasuka before he placed his hand on the other man's shoulder. When Kasuka didn't pull away, he continued. "The best place to be is outside the mosquito net. Mosquitos outside the net cannot sting the humans or the monsters inside it directly, but they can do some annoying sounds when they flutter their wings. Slowly, but persistently, until they drive the creatures inside it crazy. You see, I'm best at playing games, and you, Heiwajima Kasuka, are going to help me play a rather cruel game on Shizu-chan."

"I'm not going to help you hurt my brother," Kasuka said, still not trying to tear himself away from the other man's hold.

"You will," Izaya assured him, "unless you really do want him to end up in prison."

Kasuka wasn't one to get scared easily, but something about Orihara Izaya always made him feel like he was dealing with an extremely poisonous snake. He knew that he had to thread carefully, least he wanted Shizuo to really get hurt by a man who seemed to despise him more than anyone and anything in the world.

"I knew you'd see it my way~!" Izaya sang when Kasuka remained silent. "Unlike your brother, you're not just a dumb brute. Oh, no, you're so much more!" The smirk grew wider and he tightened his hold on Kasuka's shoulder, but not hard enough to hurt him. "I told Shizu-chan that something really bad happened to you as you two grew up and that it was his fault." As expected, Kasuka's eyes widened fractionally and Izaya couldn't help but cackle at the sight. "Don't worry, I haven't told him that you were the neighborhood's punching bag because of him, but that's the beauty of my plan!" Izaya beamed and then snickered maliciously. "Your brother is going to torture himself by imagining the worst scenarios and you're not going to tell him a thing! I'll know if you do." Kasuka seemed to be deep in thought, so Izaya continued in the hope of convincing the freak to play his game. "You owe me at least this much."

"I don't owe you anything," Kasuka stated calmly.

"Oh, but you do," Izaya hissed just as he raised his other hand to cup Kasuka's cheek. "After all, I killed one of my precious humans for you. You turned me into a murderer, Ka-su-ka-kun."

"You wouldn't have had to kill that man if you hadn't kidnapped me to begin with," Kasuka tried to defend himself, but he nearly ended up shivering when the man's cold ring touched his face.

Izaya snorted. "I wouldn't have kidnapped you to begin with if your monster of a brother hadn't almost fucked me to death."

Kasuka had no reply to that, so he chose to remain silent.

"That's what I thought. As I was saying, you won't tell your brother anything, no matter how much Shizuo cries and begs for the truth. You owe me at least this much after I saved you from Slon." He knew that his words might not be enough, so he continued in order to drive the point home. "You now know how it feels like to have your clothes ripped off by another man," he said and slowly ran his hand down Kasuka's neck and shoulder until he reached the material of the jacket and he roughly yanked it off, "and then have that man force you face down on the dirty ground..." Instead of doing that though, he moved the hand resting on Kasuka's shoulder and grabbed the freak by the nape before he leaned in closer until his lips were nearly touching the other's ear.

"What you don't know is how it feels like to be torn apart, to bleed and cry and scream as another man rams into you, over and over again, for what feels like an eternity. Can you guess what happens after a while?" he asked in a shaky voice, his own words making him sick to his stomach. "You start hoping that he'd finish soon, even though the thought of having such a monster come inside you is disgusting beyond words. That's how much it hurts." Letting go of the jacket, he placed a hand on Kasuka's thigh before continuing. "I'm nowhere near as cruel as Shizu-chan though. I wouldn't have left you there alone. I would've taken care of you afterwards, because I know just how painful it is."

Pulling back a bit, Izaya moved the hand resting on Kasuka's neck and captured the man's jaw so that he could force him to meet his gaze. "So next time you even think of telling me that you don't owe me anything, remember one thing: that day, your thighs could've been stained red as well," he uttered just as he forced his hand between Kasuka's legs, finally earning the shudder he'd been hoping for.

Kasuka pushed Izaya away and moved to get up, another shudder passing through his body when Izaya's hand dragged over his thigh before he finally got away from the Informant.

"Before you make your decision, let me add just one more thing," Izaya said and got up as well, a nasty smile now adorning his face. "I can set up Shizu-chan for much heavier crimes. I can even pin a murder on him if I so choose. Don't underestimate me, Kasu-chan, or you will come to regret it."

Kasuka pulled up his jacket and zipped it up before turning his attention back to Izaya. "It seems I have no choice in this matter."

"Sooo happy to hear that~! Oh, and one more thing. You can't tell Shizu-chan that I'm the one prohibiting you from revealing what really happened," he added before he glared at the bag and picked it up. "I'll be right back," he then muttered before he went up the stairs, heading straight for the bathroom. Once inside, he dropped the plastic bag in the corner and rushed to the sink where he turned on the faucet and splashed some water on his face. It hadn't been easy to say all those disturbing things to Kasuka, but in the end, it was worth the mental anguish if it got him what he wanted. Using the towel, he dried his face before he fished out the phone from his pocket and typed a message. Not even half a minute later, he received one back, but he ended up glaring at it and then shoving the device back into his pocket because he didn't like what he'd read.

"Tch, why are you even surprised?" he asked his reflection in the mirror. "You knew they'd do this." Sighing loudly, he turned on his heels and headed downstairs where the monster's brother was still waiting for him.

"Can we go now?"

"Not yet," Izaya answered in an irritated voice as he sat down at his desk.

"You said―"

"I know what I said. We will go soon, but first I need to take care of some things," Izaya announced in a tone that left no room for argument. "Please sit down in the meantime. I'd hate to be called a bad host by a star such as yourself," the Informant spoke mockingly and then shrugged when Kasuka ignored him and continued to stand. "Suit yourself."

Kasuka kept staring at the door for a long time, waiting for the Informant to be done with whatever he was doing so that the two of them could make their way to the police station. He had a feeling that Izaya had simply said he had something to do because he wanted to play with him some more, although he could never be sure about anything when it came to that man. He was also a bit worried about how Shizuo might react when he saw him, especially after ignoring his calls for such a long time. What he dreaded though was the fight he'd surely have afterwards as a result of Izaya's schemes.

If there was one thing of which he was certain in his life, it was that he cared about Shizuo, regardless of what his sibling had done. One of the reasons he'd always remained calm in Shizuo's presence was to not provoke him, because he knew that his brother would blame himself afterwards if he were to hurt him. For someone as emotionless as Kasuka, to stop caring about Shizuo was to give up a part of himself, and he had no desire to do such a thing, especially when he knew that the only thing awaiting would be loneliness. People knew Hanejima Yuuhei, but only Shizuo knew the real Heiwajima Kasuka. Not even his parents understood him as well as Shizou did. Sometimes, he thought that his older brother knew him better than he knew himself, and even though it was a rather disturbing thought, it was also comforting.

About ten minutes later, he heard someone press the door's handle and he wondered who would dare to try to enter Izaya's apartment like it was their home.

"They're here!" Izaya said happily before he got up and headed to the door. "Don't hate me too much, ne?" he told Kasuka just as he opened the door and let his sisters in, the two girls pushing him out of the way and running towards their favorite actor Hanejima Yuuhei before Izaya even had a chance to say a word.

"Yuuhei-san, I can't believe you're here!" Mairu almost squealed and grabbed Kasuka's arm while Kururi gently tugged at the sleeve of his jacket. "I can't believe Iza-nii is the one who made this happen. We'd always thought that Shizuo-san would introduce us. I'm so happy!"

"Happy," Kururi spoke softly, a small smile adorning her face.

"Now you no longer have to push me in front of a truck so that you could meet Yuuhei-kun. Unlike Shizu-chan, I'm doing this for free!" Izaya chirped and closed the door before he headed in their direction. "Isn't your brother the best?"

"Iza-nii, best," Kururi said and gave him a big smile before she lowered her head and tugged harder on Kasuka's sleeve.

"Mhmm," Mairu said absentmindedly, her eyes glued to Yuuhei's beautiful face. "Yuuhei-san is even more handsome than he looks in the movies."

Kasuka was so surprised by the sudden meeting that he didn't even know what to say, and he was finding it hard to believe that such adorable-looking girls could be Izaya's sisters. It also bothered him a bit that Shizuo would tell them to kill Izaya for a meeting with him, but he pushed those thoughts aside for the moment so that he could deal with the two girls.

"Thank you very much. What's your name?" he asked and smiled brightly, the same way he did whenever he was Hanejima Yuuhei and not Heiwajima Kasuka.

"I'm Mairu!"

"Kururi," the other twin said, and it surprised Izaya that even his usually shy and soft-spoken sister seemed eager to talk to the emotionless freak.

"It's my pleasure to meet such beautiful young ladies."

Izaya had to admit that Kasuka was a damn good actor, and he barely stopped himself from roaring with laughter because he knew just how emotionless and not nice the freak really was.

"Hey... wait a second. How did Iza-nii get you to come here?" Mairu asked while giving her brother a suspicious look. "Did he threaten or blackmail you with something?"

Kasuka laughed. "No, no, of course not. Your nii-san is going to help me out with something, that's all," he assured her.

Izaya raised a hand and placed it above his heart. "Oh, Mairu, I'm deeply hurt by your distrust. Your nii-san just did something nice for you, so the least you could do is thank me for making your dream of meeting Yuuhei-kun come true."

Mairu glowered at him for a few more moments before she turned her attention back to her beloved Yuuhei. "What does Yuuhei-san need help with?"

"Kururi will help!" the older twin promised.

"Shizuo got himself in trouble again, so your nii-san is going to help me with that."

This time, both Mairu and Kururi gave Izaya a suspicious look. "But Iza-nii hates Shizuo-san..."

"Indeed I do," Izaya admitted, "but I knew how much you two wanted to meet Yuuhei-kun, so I promised to help him if he promised to go out on a date with the both of you." Kasuka barely managed to hide his surprise and Izaya couldn't help but cackle at the hilarity of it all.

"Date," Kururi said softly while Mairu nearly squealed again.

"That, however, will have to wait, because right now, Yuuhei-kun and I are going to help Shizu-chan. Right, Yuuhei-kun?"

"Yes."

Immediately, Mairu's enthusiasm seemed to have flown out the window and she looked like she was about to cry. "What about the date?"

Izaya placed a hand on his sister's head and ruffled her hair. "You'll have to arrange that with Yuuhei-kun. I'm sure he can take a few hours off from work no matter how busy his schedule is. Right, Yuuhei-kun?"

"No problem, I'll find the time," Kasuka assured the twins, finally realizing what a devil Orihara Izaya really was. He'd most certainly underestimated the man.

"Iza-nii is the best!" Mairu chirped enthusiastically, for the moment forgetting how the three of them weren't exactly the closest siblings. Kururi nodded in agreement with her sister.

"Of course I'm the best," Izaya said smugly as he folded his arms across his chest, enjoying Kasuka's discomfort at the whole situation. "Anyway, we really have to leave now, so you two go home and we'll talk later, all right?"

The twins reluctantly released Kasuka and made their way to the door. "Don't forget our date, Yuuhei-san," Mairu reminded him, her tone making Kasuka think there was an "or else..." there at the end.

"I won't," he promised with a wave of his hand and a bright smile which he kept until the door finally closed behind the twins. The second they were out the door, he was back to being Heiwajima Kasuka. "You really are a devil, Orihara Izaya."

"You don't know the half of it," Izaya said with a chuckle before he put on the jacket and went to grab his keys and the phone. For once, he was looking forward to seeing the beast.

Chapter 44: All Within My Hands

Riding in the same car as Orihara Izaya was not something Kasuka thought he would one day be doing, but since he didn't want to attract any attention, he'd decided that it was best to use his own car to get to the station. He made a mental note to remember to pull the jacket's hood over his head, hoping that the officers there were not his fans. The last thing he needed was for the press to find out that Hanejima Yuuhei's brother had been arrested.

"Does Shizu-chan know how to drive?" Izaya asked from where he was sitting in the passenger's seat.

"No," Kasuka answered coldly as he sped up so that the two of them would arrive there faster, get Shizuo out, and then go their separate ways.

"I can't say I'm surprised. Can you imagine Shizu-chan in traffic?" Izaya mused as he pictured the beast tearing out the steering wheel, getting out of the car, and then destroying everything and everyone around him in a fit of blind rage. He couldn't help but chuckle at the image his mind had conjured and he had to admit that regardless of his hatred for the man, the two of them had had a few amusing encounters over the years.

Seeing how Kasuka was ignoring him, Izaya sighed loudly and rested his chin on his palm as his eyes roamed over his beloved city. His humans were buzzing around, every one of them fascinating in their own way. He was starting to miss them. His thoughts had been so filled by revenge that he didn't have much time to think about them, and he really couldn't wait for the day when he would be able to put everything behind him and go back to observing his precious humans. He only hoped that such a day was not far away since he didn't know how much longer he could take this game he was playing with the beast.

"It's easier now that the bruises are gone and that your wrist has healed, isn't it?" he asked as he glanced at the seemingly emotionless freak out of the corner of his eye. The younger Heiwajima continued to ignore him though, so Izaya gave up on trying to have a conversation and instead went back to looking out the window the rest of the way there.

"It would be best if my brother didn't see you," Kasuka said once the two of them got out of the car and made their way inside the building.

Izaya pondered the request for a bit before nodding. Shizuo didn't need to know about his deal with Kasuka. What he needed was for Shizuo's rage to be focused on Kasuka instead of Izaya himself. Besides, he had to make sure that his plan would work flawlessly, so taking a step back seemed like the wise thing to do. And wouldn't it be funny if Shizuo ended up hurting his precious little brother in a fit of rage?

He had no time to dwell on such thoughts though, so instead he pushed them to the back of his mind and focused on the matter at hand, which was to get Ikebukuro's beast out of jail. The man he'd talked to on the phone the night before was not inside the station, and Izaya couldn't help but frown and wonder where the guy had went. It would be much harder to get the beast out if the man he had in his pocket wasn't there to lend a hand. Turning towards Kasuka, he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards a corner. "The man I know seems to be away, so stay here until I give him a call." Kasuka nodded and Izaya put some distance between them so that he could talk in peace. Dialing the number with an annoyed expression on his face, he impatiently waited for the man to pick up.

"Orihara-san, is there something I can help you with?" the man on the other end asked the moment he answered the phone.

"Why aren't you at the station, Iwasaki? I need you here to get Heiwajima out," Izaya stated in a calm voice even though on the inside he was more than a little bit annoyed.

The man laughed awkwardly before he coughed and proceeded to give an explanation. "There was a big fight a few streets away from the station, so our Captain sent us to stop it and arrest everyone involved. We've just finished cuffing the troublemakers, so I'll be making my way back in a moment."

"I'll be waiting," Izaya told him before he ended the call, slipped the phone back into his jacket's pocket and went back to Kasuka. "He'll be here soon and then we can get Shizu-chan out. I suggest you keep your head down," he told the beast's brother when he saw someone giving the brunet a strange look.

Kasuka immediately lowered his head and pulled the hood higher over his head while Izaya moved to stand between him and the person trying to get a better look at his face. "I believe she left," Kasuka said a few minutes later when he could no longer see the woman.

Izaya rotated his head and looked around before turning back to Kasuka. "That's good. As much as I'd love to see the press all over this, I'd prefer Shizuo's focus to only be on you."

"You really are obsessed with my brother, aren't you?" Kasuka asked in a monotone voice, but he ended up letting out a pained grunt when Izaya fisted a hand into his jacket and violently shoved him into the wall, his head colliding with the hard surface.

"Obsessed?!" Izaya snarled and gripped Kasuka's jaw with his other hand. It wasn't like him to act in such a manner, especially inside a police station where people could see them, even if they were somewhat out of sight, but Kasuka's remark had made him lose his temper. "I dare you to say that again," he spoke through gritted teeth as he tightened his grip on the other man's jaw.

Finally, Kasuka wrapped cold fingers around Izaya's wrist and pulled away the man's hand with startling strength. "I'm sorry, but it's the truth. You've been pestering my brother since high school, and even though I understand why you're doing it now, it doesn't change the fact that you've been obsessed with him for years."

Izaya saw red, and as he was about to raise his fist to punch Kasuka in the face, he heard someone's voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"Can I help you with something? Or are you waiting for someone?" asked a young female officer carrying a big stack of files.

Izaya froze for a moment before he put on a cheerful mask and turned around. "We're fine. We're just waiting for an acquaintance. Thank you for asking though."

"I see," the woman said and smiled sweetly. "Sorry to have bothered you."

"You did no such thing!" Izaya tried to reassure her as he made his way to her. "I see you're having trouble with those, so allow me to help," he offered in a tone just as sweet.

"It's fine!" the woman was quick the answer. "It's not that I don't appreciate the help, but these files are confidential, so I can't even allow someone else to carry them for me. I hope you understand. Now, if you'll excuse me," she said and inclined her head before walking away.

Izaya's smile fell the instant she turned around and he quickly spun on his heels and nearly stomped back to Kasuka who looked as though he couldn't care less that he'd nearly gotten punched in that pretty face of his.

"You're a very good liar," Kasuka remarked.

Izaya had to shove his hands into the pockets of his jacket so that he wouldn't be tempted to really punch Kasuka. "Why thank you," he replied, but his smile was anything but friendly.

"Have you considered a career in acting?"

After a few moments of silence, Izaya chuckled darkly and shrugged. "I very much prefer to be the man behind the curtain, not the one on the stage. Besides, I know what you were trying to do earlier." When Kasuka remained silent, Izaya continued. "You were hoping I'd hit you so that I would get arrested. You think you can get Shizu-chan out of here by yourself."

"No."

"No?" Izaya's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Then what were you trying to do?"

"It was nothing more than a simple observation."

Izaya shot him a disbelieving look before he shook his head and moved closer to the entrance. Being in such close proximity to Kasuka was dangerous, both for himself and for the freak. Luckily, Iwasaki arrived at the station no more than a few minutes later, but then everything turned chaotic when the troublemakers were brought in. "Iwasaki-san," Izaya called, adding the honorific at the end so as to not seem impolite in front of the man's colleagues.

"Ah, Orihara-san, I'll be with you in a moment," he promised just as he grabbed one of the men they had brought in and pushed him down the hallway towards the holding cells.

That's not good, Izaya thought when he realized that Shizuo might snap with so many idiots looking for trouble. He had to hurry and get him out before it was too late. He was about to go back to Kasuka when Iwasaki came out and headed his way.

"That guy you want to take out of here looked very pissed just now," the man commented, frowning.

"Which is why we have to get him out right now," Izaya urged him. "I won't press charges against him."

Iwasaki folded his arms in front of his chest, a pensive look on his face. "The problem is that we all saw him attacking you, which means that you don't have to press charges for him to be prosecuted."

Izaya bit his lower lip in irritation. "What if it was a misunderstanding?"

Iwasaki frowned as he gave the idea some thought. "Well, that might work. The guy, what's his name... ah, yeah, Heiwajima, hasn't caused any troubles in here, so the Captain might let him go if you come with me and declare in writing that it was all a misunderstanding and that he wasn't the one who attacked you. With the chaos here at the station, the Captain will surely want to get rid of as many people as possible."

"Sounds good. Let's go."

"Just give me a few minutes so that I can talk to him first. I'll call you when it's time," Iwasaki said before he turned around and headed to the Captain's office.

Despite how much he didn't feel like talking to Kasuka at that moment, Izaya had no choice but to go and reassure him that he would get his monstrous brother out of that cell.

"What did the man say?" Kasuka inquired when Izaya approached him. "When will my brother be released?"

"It won't be long now."

Kasuka was a bit skeptical, but he would wait and see if Izaya could get Shizuo out before taking matters into his own hands. They both stayed silent after that and didn't talk again until after the man called Iwasaki came back and told Izaya to follow him. Kasuka was hoping to go in there as well, but he had no choice but to stay put. Unfortunately, he was worried that Shizuo might lose it, and the last thing he wanted was for his brother to really end up killing someone. Shizuo was most likely pissed for being set up again, and Kasuka felt like smacking the idiot for falling into Izaya's trap again. What was with those two anyway? From the moment they had met, their lives seemed to revolve around one another, and not in a good way.

Shaking his head, he sighed softly and folded his arms in front of his chest while he waited for Izaya, making himself as small as possible and hoping that no one would recognize him. His career wasn't what he was worried about, but he didn't want their parents to have to be told yet again that Shizuo had been arrested. There was only so much their poor mother could take. Shizuo was under this wrong impression that their parents didn't love him anymore because of all the troubles he'd caused over the years, but Kasuka knew that wasn't the case. Shizuo was the one who had distanced himself from his family, not the other way around.

"It's done," said a smug-looking Izaya, almost startling Kasuka who seemed deep in thought. "Iwasaki went to bring him out, so I'll be taking my leave now," he informed him, smirking nastily. "Have fu~un!" he sang with a wave of his hand before he turned around and walked out the door, chuckling.

Kasuka remained silent, his eyes fixed on the hallway leading to the holding cells. Shizuo came out a few minutes later, looking all pissed and like he was one step away from murdering someone, but his expression softened the moment their eyes met.

"You're back!" Shizuo exclaimed, sounding happy. Before Kasuka could even say a word, Shizuo took him into a tight hug. "I've missed you," he told his little brother before pulling away.

"I've missed you too, nii-san," Kasuka said softly as he placed his hand on Shizuo's shoulder and steered him out the door. "We need to get out of here before someone recognizes me."

"Oh..." was the only thing Shizuo said before he followed Kasuka to the parking lot and they both got into the car. "It's good to have you back," he said as he ruffled Kasuka's hair, his younger brother letting out a sound of protest and pushing the hand away before getting into the car and driving away from the police station.

"I'll take you home," Kasuka informed him as he took a left towards Shizuo's apartment.

"Sounds good," the blond said, still smiling. After the shitty day he had, he was glad to finally get a break from all the bad stuff going on in his life. "Say, how did you get me out?" he asked out of curiosity. He'd been certain that he would end up in prison, especially when Izaya had been the one to set the whole thing up.

"I have my ways," Kasuka answered calmly and hoped that Shizuo wouldn't ask more questions.

Shizuo gave him a skeptical look. "What does that even mean?"

"Nii-san, you're out, and that's all that matters. Please don't ask any more questions."

"Tch!" Folding his arms in front of his chest, Shizuo sighed loudly but decided to keep his mouth shut until at least they got to his apartment. Besides, they had a lot of things to talk about, like why Kasuka would ignore his calls for such a long period of time.

Kasuka was just glad that the two of them weren't fighting. That aside, riding in the car with Shizuo was much better than riding with Izaya. Regardless of how broken the Informant was, the man was just as dangerous as before if not more. Kasuka still remembered Slon's hands on his nape and he hoped to never have to go through such an experience again. Getting beat up within an inch of his life was okay, but what Slon had tried to do... what Shizuo had done... His eyes drifted to the blond and for a few moments it was as though he was looking at a stranger. He too is a monster, not much different from Slon. Despite how emotionally numb he was, he still ended up shuddering despite himself. Once they reached Shizuo's apartment building, Kasuka parked the car and they both made their way up the stairs because the elevator was once again not working.

"When did you get back?" Shizuo asked as he took off his jacket and placed it on the coat hanger by the door. Kasuka did the same and then followed him into the living room where he sat down on the couch.

"This morning."

Shizuo picked up two cartons of milk from the fridge and handed one to Kasuka before taking a seat as well. "How did you know I got arrested?"

"Izaya told me," Kasuka informed him as he blankly stared at the carton of milk in his hand.

Shizuo felt his hackles rise at the mere mention of that name. "Tch! What the hell is he planning now?" he hissed before he took a swing of that delicious milk he'd bought the previous day.

Instead of answering, Kasuka busied himself with drinking the milk he'd been offered. "Forget about him, nii-san," he said after a while when he could almost hear Shizuo gritting his teeth.

"How can I forget about him when the bastard got me arrested again?"

"No offence, nii-san, but you shouldn't have allowed yourself to be baited, no matter what he might've said or done. I can't believe that after so many years, you still fall for his traps."

"He was talking about you!" Shizuo snarled, his grip on the carton of milk tightening to the point that a few splotches of the liquid ended up falling on the carpet. "I now know that he was lying to get me to attack him, but back then I couldn't think straight when he said that something bad happened to you. He said it was my fault!" he hissed again, but then a string of curses left his mouth when he ended up crumpling the carton of milk he was holding.

"You need to calm down," Kasuka said as he retrieved the now ruined container from Shizuo's hand and went to the kitchen to throw it into the garbage bin after pouring the rest down the drain. At least there hadn't been much milk left inside it.

Inside the living room, Shizuo was taking deep breaths in order to calm down. Kasuka was fine. Izaya had obviously lied. And besides, Kasuka was talking to him after ignoring him for so long, so instead of doing or saying things which would surely chase him away again, Shizuo knew that he should work towards behaving nicely. "Hey, Kasuka, did you finish that movie you were filming?"

"Yes, a couple of days ago," Kasuka answered as he came back and sat down on the couch.

Shizuo's eyes roamed over Kasuka's form and he was happy to see that the bruises were gone. Slowly, he reached for his little brother's hand and pulled it gently towards him. He raised the jacket's sleeve to inspect the broken wrist, and even though he was being careful, he still saw Kasuka wince a bit when he pressed on it. "I'm sorry," he was quick to apologize, thinking that he must've used too much strength.

"It's not fully healed, that's why it still hurts a little. You didn't hurt me, so no need to apologize."

"It got broken because of me, and that will never change," Shizuo spoke in a sad voice as he pulled down the sleeve and released the frail-looking hand. Kasuka was by no means weak, but he was very precious to him and Shizuo couldn't stand the thought of seeing him hurt. The only reason why Izaya was still alive was because Shizuo somewhat understood why the Informant had done it. Slon on the other hand... Shizuo would've surely killed him if the man was still alive. He would've torn him apart limb from limb for the audacity of touching his precious little brother.

"I'd rather not talk about it anymore," Kasuka said after a few moments of silence. He really didn't want to go into that again knowing that Shizuo was still blaming himself for what happened. "It's in the past," he then added.

"Okay..." Shizuo said with some reluctance. "As long as you say you're fine, I believe you. I'm not going to fall into Izaya's trap again. I'm stupid for ever believing him when he said that something happened to you when we were kids," he hissed angrily as he shook his head.

Kasuka wanted to raise a hand and place it on Shizuo's shoulder to reassure him that everything was fine, but he couldn't do it when he knew that his next words would surely crush the blond. "Nii-san," he said, for once in his life sounding hesitant, "I believe I know what Izaya was referring to. He wasn't exactly lying."

Shizuo's felt as though someone had just viciously hit him in the chest, because for some reason, he couldn't breath. 'What are you... s-saying?"

"Some things happened when we were children, but that's all in the past now. As you can see, I'm fine now. You don't have to worry about me."

No mater what Kasuka was saying, Shizuo's body continued to grow colder, a nauseating feeling almost making him faint. His little brother had been hurt because of him. "What happened?" he asked when he finally found his voice again.

"The past is the past, nii-san, there is no point in―" He didn't get to finish though because Shizuo's hand was in his shirt and he was pulled closer until the blond's face was mere inches away from his.

"What the fuck happened?"

The emotions he could see in those hazel eyes almost made him change his mind, but he knew that no matter how much this would torture Shizuo, he couldn't tell him anything. Izaya was a dangerous man and Kasuka didn't want to risk him hurting Shizuo. He much preferred a hurt Shizuo over a dead one. "What happened is none of your concern, so let's just leave it at that," he finally said and wrapped his fingers around Shizuo's wrist to pull the man's hand away, but the blond used his other to grab him by the arm.

"Kasuka," Shizuo growled.

Instead of answering, Kasuka remained silent.

"You're not leaving until you tell me what the fuck happened," Shizuo snarled as he loosened his grip on Kasuka's shirt. He didn't let go of the arm though. "I just found out something bad happened to my little brother because of me. You think I'd just let that go?"

Slowly, Kasuka leaned forward to pick up the remote control. "As you wish," he spoke calmly before he pressed the On button.

Shizuo stared in disbelief for a few moments before he tried snatching the device from Kasuka's fingers, but the brunet evaded the "attack" and held it in the air far away from Shizuo's grasp. Neither of them heard the sounds coming from the TV as they continued to gaze into each other's eyes.

"Think back, nii-san. Did I ever complain or act differently?"

Shizuo's frown deepened as he continued to glare at his little brother. "No..."

"What happened back then, I handled it, and that's all you need to know."

"I don't care," Shizuo declared. "I still want to know, so instead of acting like... like your usual self, just tell me what happened." Instead of answering, Kasuka tried to get up, but Shizuo pushed him back down. "You're not leaving until you tell me what happened," he declared.

"Don't make me call mother and tell her that you're bullying me," Kasuka warned in his usual monotone voice, and he made his point by placing the remote control on the coffee table, pulling out his phone and starting to dial their parents' number.

"What the fuck?" Shizuo snarled and ripped the phone from Kasuka's fingers before throwing it somewhere on the couch behind him. "Look I need to know, okay? Please tell me, whatever it is. I'm imagining the worst scenarios here, and that's not something you do to your brother."

"Stop imagining. Problem fixed," Kasuka said calmly.

"How can I do that? And besides, how come Izaya knew about it anyway, hah?"

"I told him."

"You told him?! Why would you do that?"

"It came up during conversation."

Shizuo shook his head in disbelief. He'd been so surprised by his little brother's answer that he ended up loosening his hold enough for Kasuka to break free.

"Get some rest, nii-san, Kasuka said as he stood up. He took a step towards the door before he stopped and looked at Shizuo over his shoulder. "I'm not as weak as you think I am. I can handle myself. I didn't need you to protect me back then and I don't need you to do that now. Just be my brother, that's enough," and with that he walked out of the apartment, leaving a stunned Shizuo behind.

The blond continued to stare with his mouth agape for a while at the closed door, until he woke up from the shock and he got up and ran out of the apartment and after his little brother who was driving away.

I still need to know, he thought as he was running after the car. He obviously couldn't catch up to it, so he took a sudden left and ran through a narrow alley, and then another, using the information he had about Kasuka's route home to cut him off somewhere along the way. If he went through the park too, he might be able to catch Kasuka just as he would be passing by. With that thought in mind, he jumped over a fence and then ran through some bushes before sprinting through the park and then out of it. He was about to cross the street when he caught sight of Tom out of the corner of his eye, his friend being caught between two people trying to rob him.

"Shit!" he cursed out loud and changed direction, picking up a bench the moment he got there and hitting the one wearing a weird costume with it, the small body flying through the air and landing somewhere on the other side of the street. He then turned towards the other man who'd had the audacity to grab Tom's briefcase, but the other made a run for it.

"Shizuo, where have you been?" Tom inquired after picking up the briefcase, at the same time hoping that his friend would not pursue the thief. Nothing had been stolen, and besides, he didn't want to get the police involved. "Today we were supposed to take some money to the bank. I called you many times, but you didn't answer."

Awkwardly scratching the back of his head, Shizuo turned towards his friend and gave him a guilty look. "I'm sorry. It's a long story." Knowing that he couldn't leave Tom to go to the bank by himself, especially after the robbery attempt, he gritted his teeth before he sighed loudly. "I'll tell you on the way there."

Chapter 45: Heaven Torn Asunder

After leaving the police station, Izaya couldn't stop thinking about what Kasuka had said. Was what he felt for Shizuo really obsession? It was true that he'd been fascinated by the man from the moment he'd seen the blond fight, but obsession seemed like a too strong word. Heiwajima Shizuo was Orihara Izaya's natural enemy and his existence defied reason, so it only made sense for Izaya to want to destroy the man. The blond wasn't like the rest of the humans who fell for his smile and sweet words. No, Ikebukuro's beast had read Izaya from the first second their eyes met on that football field, before they even had a chance to exchange a few words. With just a glance, the beast had deemed him unworthy of his friendship. Now that he thought about it, Izaya remembered feeling somewhat hurt. He was used to seeing people fall at his feet, but the monster saw right through his masks and made it his life's mission to crush him, something which eventually happened. Izaya however liked to think of himself as a Phoenix, so while Shizuo might've crushed him to fine dust, he was certain that he would one day be reborn from the ashes left behind. Whatever it was, obsession, fascination, it did not matter. The two of them were what they were and his existence would not be obliterated by a mere beast; in the end, Orihara Izaya would come on top.

With that thought in mind, he turned left and made his way through the park; it was faster to get to the train station that way. As always, he walked past the people playing Go and Shogi, and just like all those other times before, there was this one man who was sitting there alone. No one ever seemed to join him for a match. Somehow, Izaya saw himself in that man. Without a second thought, he sat down at the small table, the man looking surprised for only a moment before turning serious again. They didn't share any words; they didn't need to. Each time they moved a piece on the board, it was their way of talking to one another, their war soon grabbing the attention of the people around them. Seeing how good the man was, Izaya finally understood why he was always alone. Who would waste time playing with someone if they would most likely lose? Izaya was not like that though. He loved a good challenge, so he battled the older man with a fire he hadn't felt in a long time. It wasn't very often that he met a worthy opponent, and he couldn't help but think that he wanted to face this man again. As they played, there were times when Izaya thought he'd end up losing, but in the end, he succeeded in capturing most of his opponent's pieces.

"My win~" Izaya sang with a smile on his face, a round of applause immediately following his words.

The man he'd just beaten let out a defeated sigh. "You're an exceptional young man."

Izaya stood up and chirped as he gave a bow. "Thank you!"

"No, really, you are," the older man said, a peaceful smile now replacing his previous serious expression. "You have a talent, you know? Have you tried going professional?" he then asked, the other people who had watched the game now curious to hear the answer as well.

Izaya let out an amused chuckle as he waved a dismissive hand. "This is just a pastime, nothing more. I do appreciate the compliment though."

Some of the men there shook their heads in disappointment while others seemed to admire him even more for being so good at something that was nothing more than a pastime.

The man stood up with some effort, his body not working as well as it used to back when he was still as young as the raven before him. "I'm Mori Ken."

"Orihara Izaya," he said, and they both shook hands.

"Will I be seeing you around?" Mori asked as he retrieved the cigarette pack from his pocket.

Izaya instantly paled at the sight, but he swallowed the lump in his throat and fought with everything he had to not let his voice crack as he spoke his next word. "We sure will, if you don't mind not lighting that up when I'm around."

Mori's hand froze in mid-air. A few moments later, he slipped the pack back into his pocket and nodded. "As you wish."

"In that case, I'll be sure to come back!" Izaya chirped and smiled as he waved good-bye before turning on his heels and heading towards the train station.

Of course I'll come back, Izaya thought with a smirk as he shoved cold hands into the pockets of his jacket. After all, you might just become an important piece on my board.

The gust of cold wind made a chill run down his spine, and he couldn't wait to get home and get some sleep in his big, comfortable bed. Anything related to the Heiwajima brothers always wore him down for some reason, and he knew that he needed rest before going through the files he'd been sent that morning. A twisted smirk spread across his face as he imagined the check mate move, and just as he was about to laugh maliciously at the things he was imagining, he heard a voice from somewhere behind him.

"We meet again, Orihara-san."

"Ah, it's you again," Izaya said, sounding bored, not even stopping and instead continuing his trek towards the train station.

"Many things have been happening in Ikebukuro lately. I'm surprised you're not interested in any of it," Aoba said as he caught up to Izaya.

Suddenly, the Informant stopped and slowly rotated his head towards the teenager beside him. "Aoba-kun, I thought I made myself clear the last time we met." Izaya didn't miss the way the teenager's jaw tightened and the briefly disgusted look on his face.

"You misunderstood me, Orihara-san, I assure you. Even though you no longer seem interested in what goes on in Ikebukuro, I'm still going to tell you out of courtesy that Mikado-sempai and I are cleaning the Dollars of the most violent members, as well as taking care of those who use the Dollars name to wreck havoc throughout the city."

"I see... fascinating," Izaya said and rolled his eyes. Fights were nothing new in his beloved city, and even though he was a bit surprised that Mikado would ally himself with Aoba, he didn't show it. "Say, what happened to your hand?"

Aoba smiled bitterly as he raised his bandaged hand and stared at it in silence for a few moments before finally answering the question he'd been asked. "I mistook a dangerous wolf for a harmless puppy."

"Ahh!" Izaya exclaimed and then he started laughing, a malicious, disturbing laughter that made Aoba put more distance between himself and the most likely unstable Informant. "I always knew there was more to him than met the eye~" he said in a sing-song voice once he stopped laughing, his lips now set into a nasty smirk.

Aoba couldn't help but snort, an involuntary action which he immediately regretted. "Anyway, this is not why I approached you."

Izaya turned his head to the side and then tilted it slightly. "Oh?"

"Is it true that your sisters are going on a date with Hanejima Yuuhei?"

This time, Izaya didn't even try to stop himself from laughing hysterically. "Ahh ha ha ha! I see, I see! Ha ha ha! So this is what it's about," he managed to say in-between bouts of laughter. "Who knew that Ran's little brother would fall for my sisters?" he exclaimed as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

"It was simple curiosity," Aoba tried to defend himself even though he felt embarrassed about the whole thing. He could only hope that he hadn't turned red. The last thing he needed was for Orihara Izaya to make even more fun of him. Then again, it was his own fault for asking the snake that was the Informant such a question. It wasn't that he truly cared for the answer, but he needed an excuse to approach Izaya to see more of the man's expressions and to hear more of his words and his sisters seemed like a good excuse as any other. Something was wrong with Orihara Izaya and Aoba wanted to know what that was.

"Yes, well, everything you told me was oh so very fascinating, but I have business to attend to, so if you'll excuse me..." Izaya trailed off and changed direction so that he could get rid of the pest following him.

"Sure you do."

Balling his hands into fists, Izaya fought to not turn back. "Indeed I do. Bigger fish to fry that is," he said with a chuckle. He refused to let Aoba win this one. When the other didn't say anything, he smirked and made his way towards Simon so that he could buy some sushi. He was curious how the big guy was doing, and he was also hoping to find out some information regarding Vorona's investigation into Slon's death.

"Iza-ya!" Simon exclaimed as the Informant approached him.

"Yo, Simon, how have you been?" Izaya asked with a smile on his face as he walked past the Russian and entered the store, the man following him inside.

"Good. Sushi sale very good," Simon answered happily.

"That's nice to hear. Can I have some for the taking?" Izaya requested in a cheerful voice before he took a seat at the table while he waited for his order to arrive. As always, the Russian man had the bag ready for him in less than five minutes.

"Iza-ya, you look strange," Simon noted and rubbed his chin with the hand in which he wasn't holding the bag.

"Aww, must you hurt my feeling so?" Izaya pouted in mock-hurt before he grabbed the sushi bag from Simon's fingers. "I've been busy, so I didn't get any sleep last night. Actually, I'm on my way home right now to eat and then get some rest."

"Good," Simon said, but he was still frowning as his eyes locked with Izaya's. There was just something different about the Informant, but he couldn't put his finger on what that was.

"You know," Izaya added as he walked past Simon, "I've heard about Slon. Vorona told me."

Simon nodded, a solemn look on his face.

Izaya was hoping that the Russian would expand on the subject, but when he didn't, he had no choice but to leave it at that. Pushing Simon was dangerous, and he didn't want the man to become suspicious of him. He felt his jaw ache at the memory of the punch he'd received from Simon and he couldn't help but raise a hand and gingerly touch his face.

"Пока!" Izaya said and waved.

"До свидания," Simon replied, the Informant never seeing the Russian's frown deepening as he walked away.

Izaya was actually looking forward to getting home and digging into the sushi. He'd missed the damn thing, especially after getting used to it. It was funny how he'd often end up eating there with Shizuo because of Simon.

Shizuo. The name brought a bitter taste to his mouth, and he ended up looking around and spitting on the sidewalk once he made sure that no one would see him. "Disgusting beast," he mumbled to himself once in a while as he made his way towards the train station. At least he'd gotten rid of Aoba. He didn't like that kid and he didn't want to end up having to listen to him on the train. After all, he had bigger fish to fry, the biggest being Heiwajima Shizuo, the man who had dared to take down a god. He spent the rest of his way home imagining all the ways in which he would make Shizuo suffer, his disturbing smile making the people passing by get out of his way. He didn't even notice though, too busy with what was going on in his mind to pay attention to what used to be his precious humans.

***

Shinra mumbled unhappily as he struggled to open the door with one working arm. He'd been out shopping, and even though he was hoping that Celty would do it for him, his beloved was out doing a few errands. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he successfully opened the door and walked inside, kicking the damn thing behind him with more strength than was necessary. He'd been certain that Celty was still out, so he couldn't have been more surprised when he heard the shower running. An insane grin spread across his face and he quickly went to the kitchen to drop the shopping bag before making his way to the bathroom. Chuckling darkly, he started undressing as he moved, which wasn't easy with one arm still supported by braces, but he was dying to have Celty's hands on him again. The two of them had ended up fooling around a bit the night before and Celty even went as far as to give him a few strokes through the material of his pajamas, but he didn't want to rush it, so instead of ravaging her the way he'd wanted, he held her tightly against his chest throughout the night.

He could no longer wait though. The first clothing article he lost was the lab coat, since the left sleeve had only been draped over his shoulder, and it was quickly followed by his pants and briefs. The shirt was a bit tricky, and he ended up growling impatiently as he slipped it off his right arm first and then struggled to pull it off the broken arm covered in braces. He knew that he shouldn't get in the shower with it, but at that point he'd stopped caring, so with a wide grin he slowly pressed the bathroom handle and tip-toed inside, his member already half-hard at the prospect of feeling Celty's hands on it. "Celty, My Darling, I'm coming in~" he sang as he raised a hand and reached for the shower's sliding doors, only to end up freezing in shock when he was met with the sight of Kishitani Shingen wearing nothing but a mask.

In the next second, Shinra let out a screeching sound as he recoiled from the man's proximity, but he ended up tripping and falling on his ass, his broken elbow hitting the bathroom floor. This time he howled in pain, and by the time he found the strength to cover his front area with his still working hand, Shingen had already seen everything.

"W-w-what are y-you doing here?" Shinra screeched, his face now as red as a tomato from how ashamed he felt at knowing that his father had seen his hard-on.

"I live here," Shingen answered calmly as he picked up the towel and wrapped it around his waist.

Shinra's elbow still hurt like a mother fucker and his legs felt weak, so he raised his knees to hide as much of himself as possible. "You n-never come home!" he whined pathetically.

"That still doesn't change the fact that I live here."

"Y-you should've called first!" Shinra complained and raised a hand to indicate that he wanted a towel too.

With a sigh, the man picked one up to hand it over to his embarrassed-looking son. "It's nothing I haven't seen before," Shingen stated calmly.

"That's not the point!" Shinra cried out before he snatched the towel from his father's fingers and furiously wrapped it around his naked form before getting up.

"So you and the Dullahan..."

Shinra didn't think he could turn any redder, but his face looked crimson when he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Unable to stand the embarrassment any longer, he covered his face with his hand and then ran out of the bathroom and towards his bedroom, all the while peeking through his fingers to see where he was going. Once there, he threw himself on the bed and just stayed like that for a while, hoping to calm down enough to find the courage to get out there and face his father. The man had seen his fucking hard-on! He felt the skin of his face boil beneath his fingers and he had to fight off the tears threatening to come out. It wasn't that Kishitani Shinra was one to get easily embarrassed, in fact, he was quite shameless at times, but the knowledge that the man had seen him like that was too much to handle. There was also the issue of his clothing articles lying around the living room floor and hallway.

Slowly, he pushed himself into a sitting position and stood up, groaning at the pain in his elbow that seemed to flare each time he moved his arm even an inch. He kept cursing under his breath as he got dressed, all the while wondering what his father now thought of him. He really shouldn't have cared, but he did, and it shamed him to know that he'd been seen like that. Besides, he'd also revealed through the monumental blunder that he and Celty were together, and he honestly didn't know what his father thought of it. He was a bit afraid that the man would outright judge him for his choice or try to separate them.

Finally, after a few more minutes of just standing there, he found the courage to walk through the door and face Shingen, but he ended up feeling embarrassed all over again when he realized that his father had picked up his discarded clothes. He considered running back into the bedroom, but he shook his head and forced his legs to move forward.

"Father, I'm sorry about earlier," he told the man as soon as he entered the living room. "I..."

"Like I said, it was nothing I haven't seen before," Shingen stated calmly as he sat down on the couch and picked up the remote control.

"Yes, but―"

"Were you just being suicidal or did Celty-kun actually agree to sleep with you?" Shingen asked as he pressed the On button, the sounds coming from the TV temporarily shattering the awkward silence.

Shinra couldn't help but fidget and look away as he gave his answer. "We love each other."

"I must confess that I never imagined that one day my son and the Dullahan whose head I took would end up together," Shingen mused out loud, but he ended up jumping to his feet and dashing to the other side of the room when he felt black shadows touch his nape.

"Celty-kun, you're home."

Shinra felt a wave of nausea wash over him when he realized that Celty had heard their discussion. She would surely hate him now for hiding such an important thing from her. "C-Cel...ty, listen, I―"

Before Shinra even had a chance to blink, Celty was in front of him, the PDA raised and shoved in his face. [DON'T SAY ANOTHER WORD!]

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Shinra nodded slowly. His limbs shook with fine tremors as he watched his beloved make her way towards his father with murderous intention, more black smoke spilling from within her body through the neck. He nearly cried out when he saw her pull out the scythe, but the prospect of having that rage directed at him kept him frozen on the spot.

Standing in front of Shingen, Celty furiously typed on her PDA. [HOW COULD YOU? WHY??]

"Scientific research," was Shingen's simple answer.

The smoke floating around her took a more threatening demeanor, and when she raised her scythe and tried to cut him, the man dashed and made a run for the door. She immediately tried to follow, but a surprisingly strong arm enveloped her from behind and she momentarily faltered when she felt how badly Shinra was trembling.

"P-please," she heard him whisper softly into her ear, but she couldn't let Shingen get away with it so she struggled out of Shinra's hold and then ran after the older Kishitani. Had she had her head, she would've roared out in frustration when she realized that the man had used the elevator to escape, but she refused to give up so easily. Tightening her hold around the scythe, she dashed down the stairs. She would capture the man and force him to tell her where her head was.

Shinra on the other hand was still inside the living room, his whole body trembling in fear at the prospect of losing the love of his life. Celty would surely hate him now and she would never want to talk to him again. He didn't think he could live without her.

"That was close," Shingen's voice could be heard as the man appeared from inside the hallway. "I fooled her into thinking I took the elevator. Actually, I think I should leave," he then added as he went to pick up his stuff. "I have some things to take care of."

Shinra could do nothing but stare at the man; he knew that if he moved, he would do something he'd end up regretting.

"What I did had nothing to do with you," the man said as he picked up the keys. "You were just a child. It wasn't your fault, Shinra, so don't let her blame you for it."

The only thing Shinra did was nod slowly as the man walked out of the apartment and out of his life for at least a few months before their next meeting. It felt as though his legs were made of cotton as he made his way to the couch, and all he could do was collapse on it, close his eyes and wait for Celty to come back. He dreaded their next encounter.

***

Izaya was humming an indecipherable song as he made his way towards the elevator of his apartment building. He couldn't wait to dig into the sushi and then get some sleep, even if it was still early. His day couldn't have gone any better. By showing Kasuka just how far he was willing to go for revenge, he'd entrapped the freak into his spider web. Now he only had to wait until the beast would snap and hopefully hurt Kasuka in a fit of rage. Shizuo's control was fragile at best and he couldn't imagine the beast simply letting it go. A disturbing smirk spread across his face and he couldn't help but chuckle darkly as he imagined Shizuo losing his temper on Kasuka. There was no guarantee that it would happen, but just knowing that the two siblings would fight because of something so silly was good enough for him.

At least he knew that he'd come a long way since that time when he'd entered the same elevator a few days after the assault. Back then he'd been broken and scared, and even though the fear never really went away, he knew that he'd made a lot of progress when it came to being in proximity to the beast. Since then, he'd heard the brute cry and had even seen guilt in those mocha eyes, but in the end, it was still not enough. A low whine slipped past his lips when he remembered that awful pain between his legs but he swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly got out of the elevator before heading towards his apartment on unsteady legs. He had no doubts that he would never be able to forget it, but he refused to succumb to the terror of that night. Straightening his back, he gritted his teeth harder and forced himself to walk proudly. He was Orihara Izaya, now a human on his way back to being a god, and he would not allow himself to succumb to memories of the past no matter how terrible they were.

Sighing softly after taking a few deep breaths, he slipped a hand into his pocket to pull out the keys, but he ended up frowning when he noticed the corner of a sheet of paper slipped beneath the door. He was more wary than curious, so he walked past it, took off his jacket and placed it on the couch before going back and picking it up.

Leaning against the door, he turned the sheet around and he felt the blood freeze in his veins as soon as his eyes fell upon the text. A few moments later, he ended up sliding down the door when he fully realized the implications of the words written on it.

 

 

---

  

You can't hide the truth forever...

 

---

 

 

Someone knows, he thought, despairing, and he couldn't help but let out a heart-wrenching cry at the thought of anyone else knowing what he'd suffered at the hands of the beast. It had to be that; he couldn't think of anything else, regardless of how many things he usually hid from other people. The sheet of paper slipped from his hand and he gripped raven locks with icy fingers at the same time that he felt a tear slide down his right cheek.

"S-some...one kno-knows..." he stuttered pathetically, more and more tears sliding down his face as he broke down into sobbing.

Notes:

First of all, thank you for 300+ Kudos! I never even imagined that so many people would like this when I started writing it. I thought about making a comic like the one I did for when I reached 150, but instead I decided that it'd be nicer to update this chapter faster and to scribble some art. It's nothing special, just some rough sketches I've done, but I hope you'll like them anyway:

Breaking Evil Art: deviantArt or tumblr
Louder Than Words Art: deviantArt or tumblr

 Thank you for reading! ♥

Chapter 46: Needles and Pins

The phone rang many times before Shinra finally heard it, too shocked by what had happened between his father and Celty to notice anything going on around him. He felt so depressed about it that he lacked the strength to even raise a hand and pick up the electronic device. Instead, he just stared numbly at it for a few more minutes before finally deciding he had enough.

"Yes?" he asked in a monotone voice while staring blankly at the glass sliding doors leading to the balcony.

"Kasuka here; I need your help," the person on the other end spoke in a voice just as monotone.

Shinra blinked a few times before fully coming back to his senses. "What happened?" he reluctantly asked and hoped that it had nothing to do with Izaya this time around.

"Someone is hurt. Can you please come to my apartment?"

"Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine. Please, I need your help."

Shinra breathed in relief as he ran a hand through brown locks. "I understand. I'll be right there," he assured him before he got up and went to pick up a few things. He guessed that it wasn't life threatening, otherwise Kasuka would've made sure to mention it, just like he had that night when Izaya had almost died at the hands of Shizuo.

He went around the apartment gathering things he thought he might need, and as soon as he was done stuffing them into a bag, he made his way to the door, but he ended up stopping and then taking a step backwards when he almost ran into a murderous-looking Dullahan. He saw her type something, but before she could even finish, he forced himself to move and walk past her, only stopping again after pressing the door handle.

"Can't this wait? I will tell you whatever you want to know," he promised when he felt black smoke encompass and then tighten around his throat and wrist, "but right now I have to go help Kasuka. Someone's been hurt and they need help."

Finally, the black smoke retracted and Celty appeared next to him. [I will take you there,] she typed on her PDA with trembling hands. Regardless of what happened, she was not cruel enough to deny someone medical care. [I will get my answers, one way or the other,] she stated as the black smoke slowly retracted back into her body.

Shinra nodded and they both made their way to the elevator and then out of the building. He was almost too afraid to touch her as he sat behind her on the bike, so instead of wrapping his arm around her waist like he used to in the past, he placed his hand on her shoulder.

[Hold on tightly. If you fall, I won't get any answers.]

Shinra shook his head. "I'll be fine," but he ended up squeaking when Celty half turned, gripped his wrist tightly, pulled it and then wrapped his arm around her waist.

Despite everything, he couldn't help but smile as they made their way towards Kasuka's apartment. He had a feeling that Celty didn't hate him as much as he'd feared; if she did, he would've been dead the second she found out that his father had stolen her head. The pervert within Shinra kept telling him to either move his hand lower or higher, but he feared he might end up getting thrown into traffic if he even dared to attempt such a thing when Celty was so upset with him. He felt like a horny teenager whenever he was around her and he almost snorted at himself for being so pathetic.

Upon reaching their destination, they went up to Kasuka's apartment, Celty taking point to make sure that no danger would befall Shinra, especially after hearing that someone had gotten hurt. She wasn't even aware of what she was doing, but Shinra's heart only beat faster knowing that she still cared enough to worry about him. It served to reinforce his belief that the two of them still had a chance. The moment they reached the apartment, the door opened, revealing a healthy-looking Kasuka. Both Shinra and Celty were happy to see Kasuka looking well, especially when their last meeting had been right after Slon's attack.

Kasuka invited them inside, but Celty shook her helmet. [I thought I saw someone suspicious outside, so I'm going to check it out.] She moved to walk away, but Shinra grasped her wrist and stopped her.

"Be careful," he said softly and released her when he sensed her glaring at him. He waited until she disappeared inside the elevator before walking into Kasuka's apartment.

"This way," Kasuka said and guided him towards his bedroom.

"It's not Shizu-chan, is it?" Shinra asked with a frown, but when Kasuka shook his head, he breathed in relief. He didn't want to upset Kasuka, but he would in no way ever treat any of Shizuo's injuries, even if the man would be dying. Hell, he wouldn't even spit on Shizuo if the blond was on fire, and that said a lot about how much he hated him for what the idiot had done to Izaya. "Then who―" He didn't get to finish though because his eyes fell on his patient's form and he couldn't help but dash towards the bed to have a closer look. "Is it really her?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes. I've cleaned her wounds as best as I could, but the cut on her shoulder blade is still bleeding. I believe she needs stitches."

"What happened?" Shinra inquired as he opened the bag to get bandages, a needle, thread and disinfectant.

"She landed near my car while I was driving away from Shizuo's apartment."

Shinra's jaw involuntarily tightened at the mention of the blond's name, but instead of letting his hatred for Shizuo distract him, he proceeded to disinfect the wound and then stitch it up with Kasuka's help. Doing his job had been much harder with only one working arm. "I'd love to stay and get an autograph from her, but I have my own problems to deal with," he said in a sad voice once he was done. "You'll get that autograph for me, right?" he requested with a small smile before he stuffed some things back into the bag and made his way towards the door.

"I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Kasuka said before closing the door.

Shinra would've liked to find out more, like why she was injured in the first place and by whom, and he really, really would've liked to get that autograph himself, but he knew that Celty wanted answers and he didn't want to keep her waiting for much longer.

[Are you done?]

Shinra nodded and headed towards the elevator, Celty following behind him. "I take it no one was outside?" he asked as he pressed the elevator button leading to the ground floor.

[I couldn't find anyone. I must've imagined it.]

"It's better to be safe than sorry."

[Yes.]

"We need to talk."

Celty nodded and got on the bike.

[Home.]

They got on the bike and drove home, the uncertainty of their future together making both of them nervous.

*** 

It took Izaya a while to calm down enough to realize that he was acting crazy. For starters, to assume that it was about the rape was jumping to conclusions. He realized with some worry that fear did strange things to his mind and he didn't like that. The note could've been about anything from driving people to suicide to Slon's death, although he doubted that it was about Slon, because if it was, he would've already been dead. Vorona wouldn't play games with him. She would simply execute him the second she found out the truth. The thought was obviously not comforting, but at least he could rule out that possibility.

Pushing himself up with trembling arms, he staggered to his desk and slumped on the chair, the emotional upheaval having taken its toll on his already weakened body. His lips quirked into a mirthless smile and he felt shame for breaking down like that because of some damn note he found under the door. He couldn't help it though, not when it terrified him to think that more people knew his shameful secret. It had taken him a long time just to accept the fact that Kasuka, Shinra and Celty knew. If it really was about the rape, then the only other people who might've known were Ueda and his men, as well as those three who had tried to kill him in that alley. His frown deepened when he realized just how many people already knew or suspected and he didn't know what to do to find the bastard who'd sent the message.

A crazy thought entered his mind and his narrowed into slits eyes fell on the city below. "Aoba..." he hissed through gritted teeth. Izumii's little brother had been pretty much stalking him, always asking questions and accusing him of silly things, like saying that Orihara Izaya no longer loved humans. A sound of irritation slipped past his lips and he began swiveling in his desk chair as he tried to narrow down the list of suspects. Shinra, Celty, Kasuka or even Shizuo himself would never tell anyone, and while Aoba pissed him off, he couldn't understand how the kid had found out, unless he'd somehow talked to Ueda, his men, or those three guys who'd tried to kill him. It was also possible that his little show with Shizuo at that warehouse didn't fool Ueda one bit, but he couldn't understand why the man would play such games. It also didn't suit the businessman's character, at least from what Izaya knew about him, to play such childish games. Whoever had sent the note obviously wanted to hurt him emotionally. Those three men who'd tried to kill him didn't look like the type to bother with such things. Besides, they had no reason to, nor were they smart enough.

Gritting his teeth harder against each other, he raised a hand and ran it through his hair in frustration. He didn't like not knowing what was going on. He was supposed to be the man behind the curtain, not the one on stage. Being in the dark about something unnerved him, and he could only hope that he would be able to figure out who had sent the note. The apartment building didn't have cameras, but if he asked around, perhaps he could find some clues as to who had dropped the note.

Sighing loudly, he got up on unsteady legs, picked up the sushi bag and went to drop it in the fridge. With his appetite now gone, it was best to go change, curl under the covers and hopefully fall asleep. As much as he wanted to find out who had sent the damn note, he knew that he needed a clear head for that. His earlier breakdown only served to remind him that he was still not well enough. The old him would've been fascinated by such a note, by the knowledge that someone had the courage to challenge Orihara Izaya. The new him, however, was so afraid that he couldn't even stop the small tremors in his hands.

He was about to go upstairs when he heard a knock on the door, but he was startled more by his own reaction than by the sound. He didn't like surprises, he didn't want interactions, and a knock on the door meant that he'd have to talk to someone when all he wanted was to be left alone.

Hesitantly, he made his way there and reluctantly opened it, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw who it was. "Shingen-san..."

"May I come in?" the man asked, but instead of waiting for an answer, he pushed open the door and walked in.

"What is it that you want?" Izaya asked, irritation now evident in his voice.

"I'm here to take Celty-kun's head."

"I don't have it anymore," Izaya said with a shrug.

"There's no point in lying to me, Orihara-kun. I know you have it."

As soon as those words left Shingen's mouth, Izaya pulled out his switchblade. "You're not taking it," Izaya stated with a dangerous smile on his face, but the grip on the weapon faltered a bit when he saw Shinra's father pull out a gun.

"It was taken away from me, but it's still mine," Shingen said as he pointed the gun in the Informant's direction.

Izaya let out a dark chuckle as he pocketed the switchblade. "To be fair, it doesn't belong to either of us."

"I'm still going to take it with me to America, along with Celty, to be used for experimentation."

"I won't give it up no matter what you do or say. I will awaken it," Izaya declared before he made his way to the desk and took a seat in his chair. "Besides, I don't think your son will be too happy to hear about your plans with Celty."

Shingen lowered the gun. "So you knew."

"Of course I knew! Your son has been pinning over that monster since long before I met him," Izaya cackled as he regarded the man with an amused glow in his eyes. "Well, I can see how you wouldn't notice though," he then continued, his smile turning into a nasty smirk. "After all, you were never around." Whether the man felt the sting in his words or not, he could not tell, that damned mask making it impossible for him to read the man's expression. "They haven't done the dirty deed yet, if that's what you're worried about." This time he burst into laughter, and for the first time since the man walked in, Shingen looked tense. "I wouldn't worry too much about a headless grand-daughter though. I don't think that's possible, even if the two of them were to go at it like rabbits."

"The head, please," Shingen requested as he raised the gun and pointed it at the man behind the desk.

Izaya frowned. "No."

Shingen sighed and slipped the gun back into his bag. "It was just a toy gun. I don't need the head right now. I only wanted to know if you still have it, which you obviously do. I still haven't found a way to awaken it, unfortunately."

Izaya hoped the other hadn't seen the surprise on his face. It was strange to be toyed with instead of being the one pulling the strings. "I found one though," he confessed with a devious smirk and then continued to explain it to Shingen when the man approached the desk. "By turning Tokyo into a warzone, it should awaken."

"That's an interesting theory. I must confess that such a thing would've never crossed my mind. To use mythology as opposed to science... it might just work," Shingen mused, obviously impressed by Izaya's idea. 

"Why, thank you," Izaya said, smirking.

"It's good that you still have it, though I don't think you will be able to keep this secret forever."

Izaya immediately tensed, the idea that Shingen might've sent that note taking root into his mind. It could've been a joke, the same as the toy gun, and he couldn't help but feel stupid about his earlier breakdown. "Shingen-san needs to work on his jokes. The previous one wasn't very funny."

"What previous one?" the man asked as he turned his head to the left and looked at the Informant over his shoulder.

Izaya's brows furrowed in confusion for a moment before he realized that he'd made a mistake. "Nevermind," he told the man as he waved a dismissive hand and watched him walk out of his apartment.

After a few more minutes or staring at the door, he turned to the window. Who was it?

***

The stifling silence almost made Shinra whimper, but he didn't dare open his mouth when the Dullahan sitting on the other side of the couch looked so angry. One wrong word and he could lose her forever, so was there any surprise that he dreaded having to explain what he knew? An impatient tap on the floor made him flinch, and before he even knew what he was doing he lunged himself at her and tightly wrapped his working arm around her.

"Please don't leave me! I love you, I love you so mu―" He didn't get to finish though. Celty's fist collided with his side and the air was knocked out of his lungs. He didn't let go; he couldn't. She was Shinra's everything.

[I'm not in the mood for your childish games!] she angrily typed on the PDA and then forced him to look at the text when he shook his head.

For a moment, when the smoke began to spill from underneath her helmet, he feared for his life, but the smoke didn't attack and instead Celty typed something again.

[Just tell me what you know!] She tried pushing him away, but when he only held on tighter, she stopped, fearing that she might really break him. She wasn't Shizuo, but her strength was not normal either.

“My father found out about you from a man called Yadogiri Jinai. He couldn’t resist the temptation to study you, so he used the Saika blade to cut the link between your head and your body.”

[Where is it now??]

“I don’t know...”

[SHINRA!]

“I don’t know!” he shouted and tightened his hold around her. “I don’t know what happened to it after Yagiri Seitarou forced my father to give it up.”

[How could someone force your father to do anything?]

“That man threatened my life. My father had no choice. I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s the truth,” Shinra lied. Leaving aside the fact that he didn’t want her to recover her head, he didn’t want to start a war with Izaya over it. He knew the Informant better than anyone, and while they were no longer friends, Shinra at least didn’t want to become his enemy. Izaya had always been dangerous, but after what happened, the man was too unstable and Shinra would under no circumstance try to incur Izaya’s wrath. He only hoped that Izaya would see that he needed help before it was too late. Seeing how Celty wasn’t writing anything anymore, he dared to look up and he saw the smoke slowly starting to retract back into her body. “I love you,” he told her again, but this time she smacked him over the head and slumped back on the couch. “I love you so much,” he repeated as he gently rubbed her back. “Please don’t ever leave me.”

Slowly, Celty raised the PDA to type her answer, but she changed her mind and instead lowered it again. She knew better than anyone how much Shinra loved her. I wish you would’ve told me sooner, she thought sadly. While it was not exactly Shinra’s fault, she still felt betrayed. How could she trust the man she loved when he kept secrets from her?

“I’m sorry,” Celty heard Shinra speak in a remorseful tone, and as much as she wanted to forgive him, she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.

[I can’t.]

The moment Shinra read the text, she saw his expression morph into one of despair.

[Not yet anyway,] she then added. She had fallen for the idiot clinging to her and that was something she couldn’t change.

***

After making sure that Tom had safely deposited the money at the bank, and after reluctantly telling his friend about why he’d been absent from work that way, he went home. No matter how much he wanted to know the truth, he knew that talking to Kasuka when he was so angry was dangerous and he didn’t want to risk his little brother’s safety. His anger was like a bomb about to explode and he didn’t want anyone to be around him when that happened.

The possibility of asking Izaya for answers was out of the question, especially after everything that had happened between them. Shizuo had been stupid to allow himself to fall for Izaya’s traps, and after hearing Kasuka pretty much say the same thing, he had to admit that he felt ashamed. He was no longer a teenager so he had no excuse for his mistake.

There was also a chance that he could lose his temper again whenever he was near his archenemy. Shizuo might’ve gotten better at controlling his anger, but he knew that all it took was a few words to make it burn brightly, just like that night. He didn’t think he’d do it again, but he had no doubts that Izaya would find a way to make him snap if the flea really wanted that. Out of everyone in the world, only Izaya could make his blood boil with such intensity.

The Izaya from the dream entered his mind again as he lay in bed that night and he wondered how hatred could ever co-exist with love. When Shizuo hated, he hated, in the true sense of the word. When anger took over, he destroyed, and when he thought that Izaya looked beautiful covered in blood, he’d only put more effort into breaking the man. His eyes widened in surprise at his own thoughts but he ended up sneering and shaking his head. There was nothing beautiful about that bastard. Izaya was a disgusting blood-sucking flea, and that was all there was to it. With a growl, he pulled the blanket higher up his body, closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

Chapter 47: It Dwells Within

Next day after work, Shizuo left straight for Kasuka's apartment. He would've gone there first thing in the morning, but the thought of leaving Tom alone to deal with the scum who owed money didn't sit well with him. He had no idea if he would find Kasuka at home, but he was prepared to wait no matter how long it took. If Kasuka thought that Shizuo would simply let it go, then his little brother had another thing coming. How could he after finding out that something he'd done was the cause of Kasuka getting hurt? He felt his guts twist in a painful knot at the thought and he nervously ran a hand through his dyed locks before he fished out the cigarettes and plucked one out of the pack. The nicotine, which had always helped him calm down before, seemed to be of no use. Glaring at the cigarette between his fingers, he shoved the pack back into his pocket and hoped that he wouldn't snap while trying to convince Kasuka to tell him what had happened long ago.

As expected, Kasuka was not at home when Shizuo got there, but luckily he didn't have to wait long. None of them spoke as their eyes met, and it was only after they went inside the apartment that Kasuka decided to break the silence.

"Why are you here, nii-san?"

"Is this your way of greeting your older brother?" Shizuo tried in an attempt to lighten the mood, but he ended up flinching when Kasuka gazed at him with an empty, cold look that nearly gave him the chills. Kasuka was obviously irritated by something and Shizuo had a pretty good idea what that was. "Come on," he hissed as he sat down on the living room couch, "you didn't honestly think I'd let it go, did you?"

Kasuka unzipped his jacket and took it off before he turned to Shizuo who seemed to have made himself comfortable. "One can hope," he said in a chilly tone. He thought he'd made himself clear the day before, but it didn't look like Shizuo knew when to give up. He'd have to teach his older brother that people didn't always get what they wanted.

After getting a glass of water, Kasuka went back to the living room and sat in the armchair opposite to the couch. He didn't say anything. Instead, he kept staring into those angry mocha eyes with an empty look until Shizuo conceded and lowered his gaze. It was funny how between the two of them, Shizuo was the one to always give in first. He seemed to know very well that a threatening look would never work on his little brother.

"If it's as unimportant as you make it sound, then why aren't you telling me what happened?" Shizuo muttered, feeling exasperated at the whole situation. "I promise that I won't blame myself for it, if that's what you're worried about," he said in an unhappy voice as he pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips before lighting it up. He felt a bit bad about smoking in Kasuka's presence, but the need outweighed the guilt.

"I have my reasons," Kasuka answered flatly.

"You told Izaya and you can't tell me?" Shizuo growled out the words as he bit hard into the cigarette. "He's a bastard who doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. I mean, think about it. You told him something and now he's using that information to piss me off."

Without meaning to, Kasuka ended up blinking in surprise. "So you've figured it out."

"I'm not stupid, you know?" Shizuo scowled and shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

Kasuka nodded slowly. "I know that you're not, but when you get angry, you stop thinking clearly."

"Yeah, well, I'm pissed off, and yet I'm trying my best to not march over to Izaya's apartment and kick his scrawny ass until the disgusting louse tells me what I want to know. You don't seem to give a damn how worried I am about you," Shizuo snarled and barely managed to stop himself from snapping the cigarette in two.

Kasuka's eyes infinitesimally narrowed at the image his mind had conjured. "Izaya has nothing to do with what happened to me, so please leave him out of this," he said, and even though his tone was neutral, he knew that Shizuo could sense the slight irritation behind it. "You know, nii-san, you should really stop blaming Izaya for every little thing that goes wrong in your life."

This time, the cigarette snapped in his hand, but Shizuo was too far gone to realize what he'd just done. "Hah? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? That piece of lying shit has been doing everything in his power to destroy me ever since we met, and you're saying it's not his fault? I got fired because of him!" he snarled as he crushed the cigarette in his palm, not even feeling the momentary burn before the thing was extinguished.

Unlike most people, Kasuka was not impressed by the terrifying display. "While Orihara Izaya may have caused a few misfortunes, you can't place the entire blame on him." Their eyes met and Kasuka had a feeling that Shizuo was one step away from using the coffee table as an outlet for his anger. He really liked that coffee table, so he hoped that such a thing would not happen, especially when he knew that his next words might send Shizuo into a murderous frenzy. "Your obsession with one another is unhealthy."

For a moment, Shizuo's eyes went wide, but in the next one they narrowed into slits as he glared at his brother. "I'm not obsessed with the flea, so shut up!"

"He said the same thing when I mentioned it to him."

Shizuo's hands shook with the effort it took to not obliterate the piece of furniture in front of him. "I'm not obsessed with him," he hissed through clenched teeth as he felt his control quickly slip away, "although I'm pretty sure that he's obsessed with me. I mean, just think about it. He's been following me around for years now, always scheming shit to make me lose it."

"You've been following him around for just as long," Kasuka stated calmly, and he didn't even flinch when Shizuo's fist descended on the coffee table and the thing got smashed to bits beneath all that raw strength. It really was a shame since it'd been custom made to go with the rest of the furniture. Kasuka figured that a splinter must've grazed Shizuo's hand because he could see blood trickling down his brother's forearm as the blond took out the cigarette pack and lit one up with shaking hands.

"I haven't been following him around," Shizuo stated in a dangerous voice.

Most people wouldn't have dared push their luck after such a display of strength, but Kasuka knew exactly just how far he could go before he had to stop. "You're always running after him whenever he shows up in Ikebukuro."

"Of course I am!" Shizuo had no problem in admitting. "Whenever that bastard shows up, something bad happens."

Kasuka folded his arms in front of his chest and his eyes narrowed even further. "So?"

Shizuo's expression morphed into one of pure shock. "Are you saying that I should let him do whatever the fuck he wants in my city?"

"Ikebukuro is not your city."

"Of course―"

"No, it really isn't, nii-san. That's just an excuse to chase Orihara Izaya around." The offended look Shizuo gave him didn't impress him one bit, so he continued in the hope of driving the point home. "Tell me, nii-san, if you hate him so much, why did you do it?"

"Do what?" Shizuo barked, too blinded by rage to think straight.

Kasuka unfolded his arms and placed his hands on the armrest. "You know exactly what I'm talking about." He really hated bringing that up, but he needed his brother to come to terms with his obsession.

This time, Shizuo lowered his head when he realized what Kasuka was referring to, his face red in both shame and embarrassment. That was the last thing he wanted to talk about with his brother, especially when Kasuka had almost been raped by a monster not that different from Shizuo himself. "Because I hate him," Shizuo mumbled. "I... I really, really hate him."

Kasuka shook his head in disappointment. "Are you telling me you're not attracted to him in any way?"

There was silence for a few moments before the question fully registered in Shizuo's mind and he ended up denying it vehemently by shaking his head although no words were coming out of his month. There was no way he was attracted to the flea, no way! NO WAY! Standing up, he kicked the remainder of the coffee table towards the middle of the living room. Enraged, he marched over to Kasuka, fisted a hand in that expensive shirt of his and hauled him to his feet until they were at eye level. "No fucking way!" he growled into Kasuka's face, his upper lip lifting in a dangerous snarl.

As though he couldn't have cared less that Shizuo could crush him without breaking a sweat, Kasuka wrapped his fingers around the strong wrist and tried to push it away, but the blond let out another growl and leaned in closer until their noses were almost touching.

"I'm done playing games. Tell me what happened."

Without letting go of Shizuo's wrist, Kasuka gazed into the honey-brown eyes of his brother. "How about you go home, nii-san? You look tired."

Shizuo let out a roar, but instead of falling prey to his uncontrolled rage and punching Kasuka in the face like he was tempted to do, he violently pushed him back in the armchair before he turned on his heels and headed towards the entrance. Halfway there, he stopped in his tracks. "Just for the record, I don't blame him for everything, at least not for that night," he told Kasuka without even turning to look at him. "As for you, don't appear before me again until you're ready to talk," he warned and stormed out of the apartment, heading straight towards the subway station.

People didn't even need to know who he was to get out of his way, the murderous aura he was giving off serving as a warning for everyone around him to stay clear off his path. Somewhere in his mind, he realized too late that Ikebukuro's beast trapped inside a tunnel while he was so pissed was not a very good idea, but luckily the people inside the subway seemed to sense the danger, which led to them moving as far away from him as possible. By the time he reached Ikebukuro, he was slightly calmer, but still pissed enough to most likely murder someone if they happened to incur his wrath.

He didn't think his day could get any worse, but that thought turned out to be a mistake when he caught sight of Shinra out of the corner of his eye. Normally, he would've kept on walking, but the man's broken arm irritated him for some reason (a lot more than he wanted to admit). He inwardly cursed as he crossed the street to catch up to Shinra, the doctor's speed telling him that the man was most likely in a hurry to get home to Celty. He felt a pang in his chest at the thought of the Dullahan, but he shook his head and placed a hand on Shinra's shoulder to get his attention, not expecting Shinra to actually look terrified for a second before his expression morphed into one of pure hatred, one which Shizuo was used to seeing after that time when the doctor had first attacked him. None of my business, he told himself, and yet he couldn't help but want to know. "Who did this?" he asked, but he ended up tilting his head to the side and looking at Shinra in confusion when the doctor gaped at him.

He truly is a dumb brute, Shinra thought in shock. "You did," he hissed through clenched teeth once he managed to snap out of his stupor. He had to admit though, Shizuo's expression as the accusation reached his ears was priceless.

"I... what?" Surely, he'd heard him wrong. "Wait, follow me," he then muttered when he noticed that the people around them were giving him strange looks.

Behind him, Shinra was frozen on the spot, his eyes widening in disbelief when he realized that Shizuo was heading towards an alley. No way, he thought, but he ended up feeling guilty for suspecting Shizuo of wanting to hurt him. Regardless of what the blond had done to Izaya, deep down inside, Shinra knew that Shizuo was not someone who went around hurting people for his own sick amusement. Izaya was the exception. As Celty had said, nothing good ever came out of the two being in proximity to one another. Forcing himself to move, he followed Shizuo into the alley and away from prying ears.

"I didn't do that!" Shizuo snarled and pointed at the broken limb as soon as Shinra got there. "What the hell do you take me for? I might be a lot of things, but I'd never hurt you, no matter how much of an asshole you are." A dark chuckle slipped past Shinra's lips and it made Shizuo think that the doctor had somehow lost his mind.

"It happened on that rainy day when you nearly cracked open my skull," Shinra said in the hope of jolting the blond's memory.

Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion and he lit up another cigarette (he was chain-smoking at that point) while he tried to remember when exactly he'd broken Shinra's arm. He recalled being very angry at the doctor for attacking him out of nowhere and also for accusing him of things he hadn't done, but that was it. "I remember that part," he admitted begrudgingly, "but I only captured your wrists. I didn't break your arm."

Shinra rolled his eyes at the frowning beast before him, sighing and pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose before shaking his head in disbelief. "I got an olecranon fracture when you pushed me to the ground."

"A what?" he asked, his frown deepening.

"Elbow."

"Tch! Shoulda said so from the start," he muttered as he took a drag from the cigarette. It was so weird to talk to the doctor after everything that had happened between them, and even though he felt bad about the broken arm, he didn't think he was at fault. "You attacked me, Shinra. I had to defend myself."

"I warned you to stay away from Izaya. How did you expect me to react after you almost killed him?" Shinra snapped. Did the dumb brute still fail to see the gravity of his actions? "If it hadn't been for Kasuka, Izaya would've died. In fact, he was one step away from dying when I found him. There was a trail of blood leading to his apartment and into the bathroom. Can you even imagine how I felt seeing my friend lying in that bathtub, passed out and bleeding, with his wrist broken and the beginning of bruises showing on his face and hips?" Shinra hissed in disgust. "Only an animal would do that!"

Shizuo groaned and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, hands balled into fists inside his pockets and cigarette hanging loosely between his lips. The gruesome details certainly weren't helping with his already shitty mood, and the fact that he'd just dirtied his pants with the blood from the cut only made things worse. Sighing, he ran a shaky hand through his hair while he glared at the nasty cut. "Look, I'm sorry; not only for what I've done to Izaya, but also for forcing you into a situation where you had to take care of him. I... I wasn't thinking straight. If I was, I would've called an ambulance for him."

The whole situation was giving Shinra a headache, and even though he despised Shizuo from the bottom of his heart, he couldn't leave before making him realize just what kind of scum he was. Celty would surely be mad at him for doing this, but since he'd promised to stay away from Izaya, he might as well torture Shizuo; the bastard surely deserved it. "I highly doubt that," he retorted with a sneer.

Shinra's words didn't come as a surprise. The doctor had no reason to trust him, especially after the man had seen the aftermath of that night. "It's the truth, Shinra, but you can believe what you want," he said in a defeated tone as he turned to leave.

"Running away, hah?"

"No," Shizuo answered brokenly. "It's not something I can run away from."

As much as he hated to admit, Shinra felt some of Shizuo's pain as he watched the blond walk away. Perhaps it was because he'd known him for most of his life and a part of him knew that Shizuo was really sorry about what had happened. Cursing under his breath, he called out for him. Shizuo stopped but didn't turn around, so Shinra continued. "Tell me what happened that day, in your own words. Tell me your side of the story." This time, Shizuo did turn around, but those mocha eyes were filled with disbelief and what Shinra guessed was a mix of fear and hope. Was Shizuo that desperate for someone to understand him, to forgive him?

The sound of a thunder made them both scowl. "Come to my place so that we can talk in peace," Shizuo suggested, and he was more than a bit surprised to see Shinra nod and head in his direction. They barely made it to his apartment before the rain started pouring. Shizuo offered Shinra a glass of milk since it was the only thing he had in his apartment. He'd forgotten to buy food once again, which only served to worsen his already horrible mood, but the doctor refused.

"Start from the beginning," Shinra said with a sigh once he got tired of seeing Shizuo walk from the kitchen to the small hallway and then back again, over and over again as the blond smoked the cigarette he'd lit up as soon as they had entered the apartment. He couldn't help but wonder if the cigarettes would kill Shizuo before Izaya got a chance to.

"Okay." Shizuo wasn't sure from where to start, but he guessed that mentioning the box and Kasuka's letter was a good of a start as any. He noticed with some surprise that his fingers shook, but it made sense that even Ikebukuro's beast would be nervous in such a situation. "That morning, Kasuka sent me some clothes. I thought they were bartender uniforms. You know, the usual stuff, but they were normal clothes. The letter I found at the bottom of the box only confirmed what I already suspected, which was that Kasuka had found out about me losing my job at the bar." He could tell that his voice was cracking, but he figured that it didn't really matter. "I was a wreck after reading it. I couldn't even stand up until later that day when I went out to get some fresh air." He gave Shinra a hesitant look, but the doctor remained silent. Growling softly, he took another drag from the cigarette while he gathered the courage to continue. "After wandering the streets for a few hours, I was just about getting ready to go home when Izaya passed me by with that disgusting smile on his face while my world had been turned upside down because of him."

"I'm guessing you threw something at him, and that's what slowed him down," Shinra interrupted him.

Shizuo nodded. "I threw a vending machine at him. He recently told me that was the reason why I caught him in the first place."

"Makes sense."

"I kept saying I wanted to kill him, but the truth is that I only wanted to roughen him up a bit and then send him back to Shinjuku to lick his wounds. That smug expression, those fucking red eyes, that damn laugh of his, all of those made me snap."

"Shizuo, that's nothing new. I don't understand why you would lose it like that when Izaya was merely acting like his usual self. What are you hiding from me?" he inquired, eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at the blond.

"I... nothing!" Shizuo defended himself; the doctor's look was making him feel uncomfortable. Kasuka's words came back with a vengeance and he felt lightheaded at the implication, but he shook his head and continued. "I told him that if he apologized, I'd let him go."

"He didn't," Shinra said, frowning. Of course Izaya would never step on his pride like that. He could almost understand Shizuo's frustration with the Informant, especially when he knew just how annoying Izaya could be.

"Of course he didn't. Apologies are something he considers to be beneath him," Shizuo snarled. "He kept taunting me until I lost it completely." He then turned to Shinra, the doctor's hard expression almost making him flinch. "I know that's not an excuse, but that's what happened, Shinra. I regret what I've done to him, hell, I came to regret it before I even stepped out of that alley."

From a simple beating, even if a beating was never simple when it came to Ikebukuro's beast, to rape was quite the jump. He'd seen Shizuo angry before, he'd even gotten hurt by him, but even if it was Izaya, the assault had been too vicious. "I know for a fact that Izaya will never forgive you, but I still want you to do me a favor, if only for the sake of whatever we had before this," Shinra said as he stood up. "Please keep your distance from Izaya. He's not doing well at all, and what he needs the most right now is time away from the man who hurt him, as well as the support of his friends, even if he doesn't know it yet."

"Don't you think I want him to stay away?" Shizuo snapped, the cigarette getting crushed in his palm just as his anger spiked. "He's the one who keeps showing up, messing with me and trying to make me lose my temper again. I don't know why the hell he's doing it." His eyes drifted over to the coffee table and he took a step towards it to drop the ruined cigarette into the ashtray. "I'm trying my best to not fall prey to his words, but they get to me, Shinra, and there's only so much I can stand before I end up losing it. I assume Celty told you about what happened yesterday, right?" As soon as Shinra nodded, he continued. "He brought up Kasuka again. Do you even know how hard it is for me to not break his neck after what he tried doing to him? I understand why he did it, but he still hurt Kasuka, and that's not something I can simply forget."

This time, Shinra nodded in understanding. "Izaya is not thinking clearly. The hatred he feels for you is consuming him, like a disease. I don't know what'll take for him to finally find peace."

"My head on a platter, what else?" Then again, Shizuo had a feeling that even then, Izaya would never find peace. That was the kind of bastard Orihara Izaya was.

"If he comes anywhere near you again, ignore him. Can you promise me that?" Shinra nearly pleaded, his heart breaking at the mere thought of Izaya getting hurt again.

"As long as he doesn't hurt Kasuka, I won't touch him," Shizuo promised.

"And if he hurts Kasuka?" the doctor couldn't help but ask.

"In that case, I'll kill him," Shizuo said in a completely serious tone. "I'll kill him, I really will, no matter how sorry I am for what I've done to him."

Somehow, Shinra understood. If anyone were to ever hurt Celty... He was still tempted to kill Shizuo for what the idiot had done to Izaya, but he knew that taking down Ikebukuro's beast wouldn't be easy, and besides, Celty would surely be sad if something bad happened to Shizuo, not to mention that Izaya was the one who was supposed to get his revenge, even if Shinra wished that Izaya could stop already and just go back to the cocky bastard he used to be before that dark day. He knew that even after crushing Shizuo, Izaya would never be the same again.

"It feels like you're not telling me everything, but as you can see," he said while pointing at his broken arm, "I can't exactly force you to tell me. Even if I was at full strength, you'd still wipe the floor with me." His tone was somewhat bitter, the knowledge that he couldn't defend Izaya against Shizuo if it ever came down to it making him wish that he had the monster's strength. There were of course other ways to bring down Ikebukuro's monster, but it was still risky.

"I can't tell you what I don't know," Shizuo mumbled as he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Shinra shrugged and headed out the door, but not before warning Shizuo one more time to stay away from Izaya.

As soon as the doctor closed the door behind him, Shizuo walked to the couch and sat down. His conversations with both Kasuka and Shinra had worn him down and he couldn't stop thinking about the accusation Kasuka had made about him being obsessed with Izaya. Ikebukuro might've not been his city, but he still had an obligation to chase the bastard away since he was the only one capable of such a feat. There was also this voice in the back of his head, reminding him of Izaya's blood-stained lips, but he shook his head and silenced it. He wasn't obsessed with Izaya, he wasn't!

Before he could think about it again, he quickly stood up and went to change, hoping to get distracted by other things so that he would no longer think of the bastard that was Orihara Izaya. Unfortunately, those red eyes kept haunting him, especially the way in which they had shun like bleeding diamonds when their gazes had met right after he was done taking his revenge.

He let out a pained sound from deep within his soul and he ended up sitting on the bed and pulling at his dyed locks in despair over what he'd done to the flea. Those goddam bloody lips and that beautiful face, as well as that disgustingly sweet voice taunting him even while the bastard was at his mercy, all of those had done something to him that night. Unable to further hold down the dam threatening to break, he felt his whole body shudder when he remembered how turned on he'd been by the sight of Izaya kneeling at his feet. Finally having the insect at his mercy had been the ultimate victory, but why did the bastard have to look so beautiful even in defeat?

Beautiful?? What the fuck?! Fuck you, bastard, I hate you! How the hell did I end up wanting so badly to break you?

This time, he couldn't suppress the sob previously lodged in his throat and he trembled in both horror and despair as he finally admitted to himself that one of the reasons he'd assaulted Izaya that time was because he'd been sexually attracted to the man.

Shit! Shit! Shit! What now..?

Chapter 48: From out of Nowhere

Izaya stood inside the bathroom of his apartment, glaring at the bag Kasuka had left behind. The mere thought of touching that coat again made his hands shake with fine tremors and a shudder spread through his body when he remembered how his favorite piece of clothing had been dragged up his body as the beast uncovered the lower part with the intention of ravaging him like the animal that he was. His eyelids fluttered as he was overcome by fear and disgust, and before he could fall prey to the terror that so often left him unable to breathe, he forced his body to take a step forward, and then another, until he was standing right beside it. He hoped to never have to touch it again after going through the hell of having to dress Kasuka in it, but it seemed like he wasn't that lucky. His skin was crawling just by being in proximity to it, but he gathered his courage and reached a trembling hand to open it.

Just a coat, just a coat, justacoathurryupandopenit, he bellowed inside his head, and before he could change his mind and run out of the bathroom like he'd done the previous two times he'd tried to open it, he curled his fingers into the plastic and tore it open. He nearly recoiled when his skin came in contact with the material, but since he refused to admit defeat, he grabbed the damn thing and pulled it out. He knew there'd be no blood on it, but somehow, a part of him, the victim part of him, expected to see it covered in that warm liquid. There was no blood on the fur though, nor any staining the lower part of it. No blood, no blood, noblood, he kept repeating like a mantra for a while, but he ended up letting out a broken laugh when he noticed the switchblade lying on the bathroom floor. His eyes went back to the coat and before he could change his mind, he rushed to his bedroom and placed it on a hanger before running back to the bathroom and picking up the weapon. His hands were still trembling, but at least he could breathe easier. Perhaps it was fate that he got the coat back after all. At least Kasuka had returned the switchblade, which was a good thing since he hadn't been able to recover the one taken by the police.

He then thought about the switchblade he'd let Shizuo keep and he wondered if the beast still carried it around. What a dumb brute, he thought with a chuckle as he pocketed the one Kasuka had taken away from him that night when the two of them ended up fighting. As he walked out of the bathroom and headed to his desk, he also wondered just how angry Shizuo was about Kasuka keeping secrets from him. Knowing him, the beast was most likely very close to snapping, and even though he knew that the possibility of Shizuo actually hurting Kasuka was very small, Izaya was still happy that the two of them were fighting. It had always bothered him that Kasuka was so understanding of Shizuo to the point of defending him even after finding out that the blond was a monster.

Now slightly calmer, he sat down in his desk chair and glared at the note for the millionth time in two days. He was still so disturbed by its existence that he told Namie not to come in because he knew the woman would immediately be able to tell that something was wrong. As he speculated on its source, he was so deep in thought that he nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang and his eyes widened in both surprise and dread when he saw the caller's ID.

"Hello, Ueda-san, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?" he asked in a sweet voice even though on the inside he was scared.

"I was wondering if we could meet up."

If Ueda was responsible for the note, then Izaya knew he had no choice but to destroy the man by any means necessary. "Oh? May I know why?"

"I'd rather we talked in person, if you don't mind."

Izaya gripped the phone tighter, fear skyrocketing. "I see. Yes, of course we can meet up."

"Does the park near the restaurant where we first met sound good for you?"

"Perfect!"

"In that case, I'll meet you there, by the statue."

As soon as Ueda ended the call, Izaya sprang to his feet and started walking around the living room, biting his nails as he tried to come up with a way to get rid of Ueda if the man was indeed responsible for the note. If the park was deserted, he could kill him and perhaps even get away with it if he made it look like a robbery.

"No!" he found himself growling. "There's no way, Orihara Izaya, that you will kill another human." Slon was already one too many and he refused to sink so low as to kill Ueda too. If the man was responsible, then he would just have to bribe him with information, his most precious currency. He knew many things that could help Ueda in his business; perhaps that was the reason why the man was blackmailing him to begin with.

He didn't have time to waste, so he picked up his phone, keys and jacket and then headed straight to the train station. His trip to Ikebukuro didn't even register in his mind. He was too busy trying to figure out a plan to silence Ueda to worry about anything else happening around him. If he'd been paying attention to his surroundings, he would've noticed the strange looks some girls were giving him, as well as the giggles or outright laughter some were trying really hard to suppress.

"Ueda-san," he called out as he approached the businessman, not at all surprised that the bodyguards were there with him. "I hope you haven't been waiting for long."

"I just got here," Ueda assured him.

Izaya forced a smile on his face and sat down on the bench next to the businessman. He didn't say anything. Instead, he waited for Ueda to bring up the note, as well as for him to demand some type of payment for keeping the information secret. The mere thought of the man knowing what really happened made his face burn with shame, but he wasn't about to just fold either. He'd broken down too much lately and he wasn't about to do it again anytime soon.

"I assume you're wondering why I called you here."

"What?" Izaya let out the question before he could stop himself, his expression set into one of surprise. He knew exactly why he was there, so why would Ueda ask such a question. Unless it's not Ueda to begin with...

The man sighed softly. "This is very embarrassing for me, especially after what happened last time."

Izaya's eyes further widened in surprised. What...

"I'm very sorry about what happened that day. I jumped to conclusions, so you and your partner ended up suffering because of me," Ueda said in a sincere voice. "The reason why I called you today is because I want to explain myself. You're probably wondering why I even bothered to interfere in the first place, but I hope that you will be able to forgive me after you hear me out."

Stunned, Izaya could do nothing but nod slowly while his body wanted nothing more than to slump on that bench in relief. Ueda hadn't been the one to send the note, which was good because anyone would be easier to deal with than the businessman.

"As you already know, I grew up in both the States and Japan."

Izaya nodded again.

"One of my friends from the States ended up killing herself after being assaulted by someone we both thought was our friend," Ueda said, his heart aching at the memory of that beautiful girl who'd been his first love. "I never knew what happened until after she killed him with her father's gun and then killed herself as well."

"I'm sorry," Izaya said in a somber tone, the businessman's actions finally starting to make some sense.

"It was a long time ago, but I still felt guilty for not realizing that the reason why she stopped hanging out with us and why he kept insulting her was more serious than just some bickering. Perhaps I could've done something..."

"You couldn't have known," Izaya tried, but he could see from how hard the man's fist was trembling that he was still very much affected by what had happened.

"I'm sorry for what I've done to you and your partner. I turned what you two have into something ugly out of my own selfish desire to somehow redeem myself for not noticing that my best friend was a monster."

"It's all in the past now," Izaya assured him, although he was still worried about the other people who'd been present that time at the warehouse. "I only wish that you didn't get others involved, that's all," he added in what he hoped was an awkward, embarrassed tone.

"I apologize for forcing you to reveal your relationship with Heiwajima-san to myself and my bodyguards since I assume you wanted to keep it a secret, but rest assured, my men know nothing of what was discussed in that warehouse. They do not speak Japanese. At most, they know the two of you are together, but they aren't aware of my blunder. You might think I'm paranoid, but I always pick my men carefully. I prefer my business to not be known by people who could leak information."

"I see. Thank you." Izaya put on a genuine smile. He liked how this man thought. "May I inquire to the fates of the three men who tried to kill me? I don't want to always have to look over my shoulder."

"They will never bother you again," Ueda assured him, a disturbing smile adorning the man's face.

That wasn't good enough for Izaya. It could mean anything from the men being bribed into shutting up to them being murdered.

Sensing his confusion, Ueda continued. "I'm sorry, but I can't reveal any details. All I can say is that you will never cross paths with them again."

"I really can't believe Ueda-san trusted the words of those lowlifes," Izaya said as he got up. Just because the man had apologized, it didn't mean he'd let it go. After all, Ueda was responsible for the kiss he'd been forced to give Shizuo.

Ueda stood up as well. "Normally, I wouldn't have, but when we first met, you gave me this impression that you were jumpy, and that was not the Orihara Izaya I've heard about. It's my mistake for reading you wrong back then."

"Jumpy?" Izaya asked in surprise, his voice a bit too high-pitched for his taste. He almost felt a bit embarrassed, but not quite. He was more worried by what the businessman was saying.

"Yes. After what happened to my friend, I did some research on the effects of such an assault on the victim. There were many signs she was showing, but I didn't know what they meant. For example, the way she couldn't stand being touched, or that terrified look she'd always get whenever a guy approached her. I'm sorry," the man suddenly said as he ran a hand through his hair. "I just wish I could've done something."

"..."

"It's not something I ever told anyone, but I wanted you to understand why I did what I did."

"It's okay," Izaya finally said. "Ueda-san was just trying to help. I'm grateful you would go so far for someone you barely know." Their eyes met and the corners of Ueda's lips quirked upwards just a tiny bit.

"I like you, Orihara-san. You get things done. Please forgive my blunder so that we could work again in the future," Ueda said and raised a hand, waiting to see if Izaya would shake it.

"What kind of an Informant would I be if I were to chase away such an important client?" he said, smirking as he shook hands with the man.

"Thank you for your understanding. I'm going back to the States for a while, but I'll be sure to contact you again as soon as I need information." With that, the businessman walked away, the bodyguards following suit after him.

Although Izaya felt relief that it wasn't Ueda, he was still worried about the note. The man's words had also disturbed him to some extent. He stood up and thought of heading home, but then he remembered that Mori Ken should be in the park and he went looking for him. He found the man sitting alone at one of the small stone tables.

"Mori-san," Izaya greeted in a cheerful tone. "May I join you for a game?"

"You're always welcome to join me, Orihara-san," the man answered and invited him to take a seat.

Fifteen minutes into the game, when Mori Ken seemed to be having a hard time deciding his next move, Izaya fished the phone from his pocket and went online. He typed 'effects and aftermath of rape,' and then hit the Search button since something had been bothering him since his talk with Ueda Shou. As the results of the search came in, he gave each of them some thought.

'Sexually transmitted diseases' ― this was one subject he'd never even discussed with Shinra, but he guessed that the doctor would've told him if something was wrong. After all, Shizuo used to go to him to get his injuries treated all the time, so surely Shinra would know if the beast had any diseases.

'Self-blame' ― no, he blamed the brute for everything, but he couldn't help but regret his decision of going to Ikebukoro that day. He also wished that he hadn't taunted the idiot so much.

'Shame' ― as he read the word, he couldn't help but flinch. He felt really ashamed whenever he thought about it, which was most of the time.

'Lack of motivation to seek care' ― At this one, he scowled. He didn't need care...

'Cutting themselves off from other people' ― it wasn't Izaya's fault that Shinra was an asshole who'd attack him for merely revealing to the Dullahan what had happened. Tch!

'Anger' ― how could he not be angry?

'Aggression' ― again, it really wasn't his fault that he wanted to chop the monster to tiny bits and then feed the remains to the dogs.

'Suicide' ― a scowl marred his features, and before he could read any further, he turned off the phone and shoved it into his pocket. Mori Ken was giving him a strange look, but the man wasn't saying anything and for that Izaya was grateful.

He knew what came next on that list. Fear of touching. He could barely stand to touch himself, let alone allow others to do it. So what if he hadn't had sex in months? It wasn't like he'd been sleeping around even before the assault. He had normal sexual urges like every other man, but he usually kept them in check and only indulged himself whenever he would find a suitable partner. He always made sure to avoid his fangirls. He couldn't deal with the drama, especially after what he went through in high-school with Mikage. Sex was not something he needed that often, not really. And yet, the more he thought about it, the more it shocked him how terrified he would most likely be even if the one touching him would be a woman, not because she could hurt him, but because whenever someone touched him, he couldn't help but remember Shizuo's hands on him. He shuddered in disgust at the memory and shook his head to chase it away before giving the game his full attention.

***

It was late in the afternoon when Shizuo finally headed home for the day. He was in a pissed off mood, his realization regarding Izaya, as well as the fight he'd been dragged into, were certainly not helping him with his temper. As though things weren't already bad enough, he also ended up running into Celty during the whole Raira students and the van gang latest incident. It was like whenever either of those two groups were involved, something bad usually happened. He had such a scary expression that people nearly ran away from his path, but Shizuo was not noticing any of it when his mind was tormented by thoughts of that night and of Izaya. He was distracted, so he really shouldn't have been so surprised when he ended up running into someone. His first instinct was to growl and to punch the person out of his path, but he ended up freezing with his fist in the air when mocha eyes met brown-red ones. Izaya pulled out his switchblades and flicked them open before the man even landed on the ground as he jumped backwards, the defensive response not at all surprising considering what Shizuo had done to him. For a few moments, they stared at each other, until Shizuo lowered his gaze in embarrassment. "I don't want to fight." He didn't dare look at Izaya, not when he so clearly remembered everything.

Instead of arguing, Izaya pocketed the switchblades. As much as he wanted to plant them deep into the beast's flesh, he knew that he needed a few more things before he could finally indulge his thirst for blood. "Not in the mood to fight today either," Izaya admitted, and yet he didn't move to walk away. Instead, he kept glaring at Shizuo.

A rufescent blush spread across Shizuo's cheeks the moment he risked a glance at Izaya. As much as he hated to admit, Orihara Izaya was a good-looking man and a very good kisser. He nearly groaned at the memory, but he swallowed the sound threatening to come out and instead tried to focus on the situation at hand. Taking in a deep breathe, he raised his head and allowed himself the chance to carefully observe the smaller man frowning at him. Those almost red eyes were fascinating and those lips had been soft, and yet he couldn't say that he had any urges to screw him right there and then, or anywhere for that matter. He didn't know what that meant, but he felt some relief at the knowledge that he wouldn't jump Izaya at first opportunity. Besides the face―and, as much as it pained him to admit, that ass―there was nothing about Orihara Izaya that he liked. He despised the man. In fact, he still hated him enough to want to beat him to a bloody pulp, but the guilt always prevented him from acting upon his instincts. Heiwajima Shizuo wasn't one to take shit from anyone, and yet he'd allowed Izaya to humiliate, embarrass, insult and psychologically torture him ever since the insect had saved Kasuka.

"What are you staring at?" Izaya asked, disgust marring his voice.

"You," Shizuo answered automatically, but he immediately regretted opening his mouth without thinking.

Izaya was so shocked by the answer that he ended up taking a step backwards, Shizuo's insistent gaze worrying him for some reason.

"Why?" Luckily, the people around them had ran away the second the two archenemies bumped into each other, so Shizuo and Izaya didn't have to worry about others overhearing their conversation.

"I'm just thinking," Shizuo answered after a few moments of awkward silence. "About how much I hate you."

Without meaning to, Izaya ended up breathing in relief; the last thing he needed was a constantly turned-on brute chasing him around. He shuddered at the thought but he quickly hid it with a chuckle. "It must be frustrating not knowing what happened to your precious little brother." Shizuo's answer was a growl, but Izaya continued anyway because he just couldn't shut up. "He told me the secret, and yet he refuses to put your mind at easy. Ah, it must be hard being Heiwajima Shizuo," Izaya mocked, but he tensed when he watched the beast grab the rail and uproot it from the ground.

"IIIIZAAAAYAAAA!" Shizuo roared, his control slipping at the mere mention of Kasuka's name. Rage like he hadn't felt in a long time blinded him, and before he even knew what he was doing, he flung the metal thing straight at the flea.

For a moment, Izaya couldn't react because of how stunned he was by Shizuo's aggressive behavior, so when the brute threw the improvised weapon at him, he barely managed to jump over it. Izaya's feet had only just touched the ground when Shizuo lunged forward, but he successfully avoided the brutish hand from grabbing his arm at the last moment. He ran away at full speed, not knowing what to think after seeing Shizuo so angry. He knew that it must've been hard for Shizuo to not attack him all this time, but it was still ridiculous that the idiot would get so angry at the mere mention of Kasuka's name. Still, there was no way that Shizuo could catch him, not without injuring him first. He continued to run, ignoring the fear squeezing his lungs and making his limbs feel as though they were made of lead.

As he ran after Izaya, Shizuo was starting to slowly become aware that he'd lost control and it took him about five minutes before he finally managed to calm down enough to stop chasing the man. "If I catch you in Ikebukuro again, I'm gonna break your legs!" he roared after him, the smaller man only stopping momentarily before resuming his sprint. Apparently, Izaya didn't feel like messing with him again that day and Shizuo was for once glad that the idiot knew when to stop. Sexual attraction or not, he really still hated the bastard, and besides, it wasn't like he'd felt any attraction towards the flea earlier, or any other time they had met since then besides that one time when they kissed and he'd enjoyed it. Whatever the hell he'd felt that accursed night, it must've been a combination of things which had lead to him being aroused at the sight of a defeated Orihara Izaya.

He could see why Kasuka would think that he was obsessed with Izaya, hell, even that idiot Karisawa was under the erroneous impression that he and the flea were an item, but it wasn't that. How could people ever understand the deep hatred they held for one another? As for Shinra, the doctor had been right. There was more to it, but someone like Shinra would never understand that euphoria Shizuo remembered feeling the moment he realized that he'd finally caught the elusive prey he'd hunted for so long. Back then he was starting to believe that he would never catch him, so he couldn't have been more surprised when he finally got his hands on the flea. Even Shizuo himself didn't yet fully understand why things had gone so wrong that night, but even though it sounded troublesome, he made up his mind to figure it out one way or the other. Pulling out a cigarette from the pack he'd just fished out of his pocket, he lit it up and took a lungful of smoke.

I'll figure it out Izaya. I may hate you, but I owe you at least this much after I broke you, he thought as he gazed at the corner behind which Izaya had disappeared earlier before he turned around and headed home.

***

Izaya got home in the evening, confused, a little bit scared and pissed off all into one. Instead of finding the peace and quiet he yearned for, he got a headache instead when he opened the door and caught sight of Namie. "Why are you here?" he asked, and he couldn't hide the annoyance he felt at seeing her sour face.

"A client needed something and the file was on the computer here," the woman said as she turned it off.

Izaya let out a dark chuckle and dropped his jacket on the desk chair before he moved to stop her from leaving. "Even in your spare time, you still work, doing all these little things for me. Is it only just the pay?" He knew there was nothing more, but he was in a shitty mood and she ended up crossing his path when his destructive tendencies just happened to surface. Besides, his discussion with Ueda had made him realized that he was indeed terrified of any kind of physical contact. With Namie though... she was different. Perhaps...

Izaya's behavior flummoxed Namie. After shooting him a disbelieving look, her eyes narrowed into slits and she glared at him, arms folded in front of her chest while she tapped her foot impatiently. "Of course not. I do it for your ever-pleasant company," she mocked and tried to walk past him, but Izaya blocked her path again. "I'm not in the mood for games today."

"But isn't Namie-san my housewife?" Izaya teased. "You always take such good care of me."

"I'm not your housewife nor your maid, so move before I break your face," she warned as she unfolded her arms and balled her right hand into a tight fist.

Instead of moving, Izaya's continue to stand there, his smirk growing darker by the second as he gazed at the ornery woman before him.

Having had enough, she raised her fist and tried to punch him, but Izaya captured her wrist and wrapped his other arm around her waist so that he could pull her closer.

"What are you doing?" she shouted in outrage and started struggling, but Izaya only held her tighter.

"What kind of question is that? I'm obviously going to give my housewife a kiss as a reward for always working so hard," he said with a chuckle and he felt relief to know that he could touch Namie without a problem.

"If you dare, I'm going to chop your dick off, you horny bastard!" she threatened as she glared at him with all the animosity in the world, but she ended up closing her eyes when she saw him purse his lips and lower his head to kiss her. She could feel his hot breath as he got closer to her face, but he surprised her yet again when she felt his lips touch her forehead. The kiss was short but gentle, like a parent would kiss a child, and she stood there frozen in shock even after Izaya had released her.

"Were you expecting something else perhaps?" he teased and in the next moment he let out a shrill of pain when his beloved secretary kneed him in the groin. It hurt so much that he couldn't even stand anymore, so he ended up collapsing on the floor of his apartment, whining in pain while tears sprang at the corners of his eyes and ran down the sides of his face.

"Tch!" she spat out in disgust before she headed out the door and away from her idiot boss. Where did she put that rat poison again? It didn't matter, she'd just have to buy some more.

Inside the apartment, Izaya's whimpers mixed with broken giggles. He'd never been hit in that area before and he finally understood how easy it'd be to bring someone down by just kicking them in the nuts. He'd have to remember to try it on Shizuo. Would the beast even feel it? He somewhat liked the idea of damaging that loathsome piece of flesh that had ripped him apart, the simple thought serving as anodyne for his pain. "Oh, Namie-san, you really are one of my favorite humans~" he sang out loud about five minutes later when he finally found the strength to get up and limp to his desk chair. "I know I said that I love all of my humans equally," he then added as he rotated the chair so that he could watch the city below, "but I can't help but love you just a tiny bit more."

Chapter 49: Telephone Murder

Six days after his run-in with Izaya, Shizuo hoped once again that he would manage to get home without bumping into the man. He was already pissed off because of Kasuka and his stubbornness, so the last thing he needed was the insect annoying the hell out of him. He was already stressed enough just from trying to figure out what the hell happened that night. No matter how he looked at it, something had definitely broken inside his head. That night he'd crossed a line he shouldn't have crossed and because of him a lot of people ended up suffering. Not only did he ruin his friendship with both Celty and Shinra, but the two of them could barely stand to look at him.

Shinra might've acted civilized the last time the two of them talked, but Shizuo knew that deep down inside, the doctor was probably thinking of ways to finish him off. Celty on the other hand was probably suffering after telling them to never look for her again. He knew that it hadn't been easy on her to say such a thing, but he could understand her frustration with both him and Izaya. The two of them were like chemical substances meant to explode whenever they were brought together. He also understood that while he may never hurt the insect as he'd hurt him that night, he couldn't guarantee not breaking a limb or two once in a while. Izaya had this talent of driving his rage to the surface and then pouring gasoline on his already burning hatred.

As he was walking home, he heard a string of giggles behind him and he sighed in annoyance. He was used to teenage girls talking about him like he was some sort of monster, as well as the stupid games they played in which they dared each other to go talk to him. He wasn't interested in such girls, especially since he preferred more mature women. Stupid girls, he kept thinking as he increased his pace and hoped they would stop following him. He really didn't want to hear them speculate, as others have done before them, just how much of a beast he was in bed.

How could they know that was exactly what he was? A beast and nothing else. Just a monster who would force himself on someone else. The headache he was already feeling suddenly intensified and before he'd end up kicking their skinny asses (Shizuo wondered if they ever ate) he shot them a murderous glare over his shoulder. Immediately, they screamed and ran away and Shizuo let out a sigh of relief. He didn't want to hurt them by accident during one of his rage episodes. He didn't like hurting anyone, but he hated hurting women the most, especially after that incident at the bakery when he ended up injuring the nice lady who used to always give him and Kasuka a bottle of milk every day. He wondered how she was doing, if she was okay, if she hated him, but at the same time he knew that such questions were irrelevant. What happened back then felt like a lifetime ago and if she was lucky, she'd already forgotten all about it.

Whatever, he mumbled. It didn't matter anymore; it was all in the past. At least he'd managed to get home without running into Izaya. After his last conflict with the man, Shizuo really didn't trust himself to not hurt the flea, especially when the bastard kept mentioning Kasuka. He could've hurt him pretty badly with that rail, but at least the insect had managed to avoid getting hit. He actually breathed in relief once again as he recalled that second when Izaya jumped over the damn thing. Back then Shizuo had been angry, but the only thing he felt as he opened the door to his apartment was relief; he really didn't want to break his promise of never hurting the flea again. He'd damaged Izaya enough as it was.

"Dammit," he cursed and ran a hand though his hair before he proceeded to take off his clothes and head to the shower. He didn't want to think about Izaya anymore, or about Kasuka. His little brother had made his choice and Shizuo was done playing Izaya's games. He knew that he couldn't force Kasuka to tell him anything and he also knew that getting it out of Izaya was impossible without completely breaking the man, and since both routes led to a dead end, he chose to take a step back for the time being. Ever since the day he'd met Izaya, he'd played right into the man's traps, but that was over.

Scowling, he quickly washed up and then went to put on some clean clothes. As he rummaged through the drawers, he realized that he only had one clean T-shirt to wear inside the house, so he grabbed the white clothing article and slipped into it on before he picked up a pair of grey sweatpants and headed to the kitchen to boil some water for the instant noodles he was planning to eat. As he stood at the table and waited for the water to boil, he impatiently tapped a finger on the table. "So hungry," he mumbled unhappily. He hadn't eaten in the morning nor while he was at work, and after spending so much energy chasing people around and beating them up, he needed nourishment to replenish his energy reserves.

A few moments later, his finger froze in mid-tap when he heard a knock on the door. After throwing the water a glare for not boiling fast enough, he went to see who was looking for him. "What do―" The rest of the words got caught in his throat though when he saw Kasuka standing there with that usual emotionless expression of his. A smirk spread across Shizuo's face. "Have you finally decided to tell me what happened?"

"No," Kasuka answered flatly.

Shizuo let out a growl and moved to close the door, but Kasuka's arm shot forward and he grabbed Shizuo by the T-shirt. "Wait, nii-san, we need your help."

"Huh?" Shizuo exclaimed, and his eyes went wide in surprise when Kasuka moved to the side and revealed a petite beautiful young lady standing there with her eyes fixed on a spot on the dirty floor of the hallway's apartment building.

"Hello, my name is Hijiribe Ruri. It's a pleasure to―" She never got to finish though, because when she raised her head, she saw who Kasuka's brother was. For a moment, she just stared, eyes wide in terror and body trembling, but when she finally found the strength to move, she took a step backwards.

"Ruri-san, what's wrong?" Kasuka inquired in what almost seemed like worry as he placed a hand on her trembling shoulder.

"No-nothing!" she assured him with a forced smile. "I'm fine."

Shizuo could only gape at the scene before him. His little brother had not only showed up after being told not to appear before his eyes again without revealing the truth, but he'd also brought a girl with him. "What do you want?"

"Ruri-san is in danger and we need to hide here for a little while until we find a better place."

"So my place isn't good enough for you, hah?" Shizuo scowled as he moved inside the apartment without closing the door. It was his way of telling them to come in. "Wait," he then added when he remembered the water he'd left on the stove. Sighing, he turned it off and went back into the living room. There was no way he could eat now that he had guests, which further served to irritate him since he was starving. Eyeing his two guests, his gaze fell on Ruri who for some reason seemed to be afraid of him. Perhaps she'd heard of him before. "What exactly are you to my brother?" he cut straight to the subject.

Before Ruri could answer, Kasuka snaked an arm around her arm and pulled her closer to him. "Ruri-san is that special someone," he declared.

Shizuo could only stare and gape like a fish out of its much needed water; never before had he heard of his little brother dating anyone. "What?" he then asked in a squeaky tone when his voice finally came back.

"It's as you've heard." Turning his attention back to Ruri, Kasuka led her to the couch where he told her to sit down and watch some TV. With Ruri calmer and more comfortable sitting down, he went back to Shizuo. "We need to talk; in private," he told his older brother before he made his way to the bedroom.

Still stumped about the whole situation, Shizuo shook his head and blinked a couple of times before following Kasuka inside. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend, and a hot one at that," he commented with a smirk.

"Don't talk about her like that," Kasuka requested as he opened the window to let some air in. "She's a good person."

Shizuo scowled at the admonishment. "I didn't say she wasn't. Look, why are you here? I told you not to show your face before me again until you're ready to talk. I'm guessing you aren't, so how about you take your girlfriend and get out of here, hah?"

"I can't," Kasuka answered in his usual monotone voice. "Ruri-san's stalker burned down her apartment. She's in danger and I have to protect her."

"That's just adorable," Shizuo cooed, but he ended up flinching when he met Kasuka's icy stare. "Okay, fine, so she's in danger and you want to be her knight in shining armor. I don't see what that has to do with me. As I've said, I don't want to see you again," Shizuo said as he folded his arms in front of his chest and glared at his little brother.

"We need a place to hide in for a day or two. Please, nii-san, I don't want her to get hurt," Kasuka pleaded.

With a roll of his eyes and a sigh, Shizuo finally made up his mind. "Fine, but I'm sleeping on the couch in case that stalker finds this place. I'd rather he goes through me first."

Kasuka's half-closed eyes slightly widened and he couldn't help but protest. "But nii-san, there's only one bed inside your bedroom!"

With a smirk and a shrug, Shizuo turned around and went back to the living room. "You can stay here with my brother for as long as you need. Just... just keep it down."

A faint blush spread across Ruri's cheeks and Shizuo barely stopped himself from laughing out loud. He watched Kasuka rush over to Ruri who had covered her face, and he smiled when he realized just how similar the two lovers were. Both had that emotionless look on their faces with those half-closed eyes, and yet neither of them looked empty on the inside. Shizuo was certain that Kasuka had emotions, only that his little brother couldn't bring them to the surface unless it was through acting. It was a pity, since a part of him really liked the chatty Hanejima Yuuhei.

"Nii-san, could you go buy some food for Ruri-san? She hasn't eaten anything today." Without waiting for an answer, Kasuka handed Shizuo his credit card.

"I'm not hungry," Ruri interjected, but Kasuka ignored her and instructed Shizuo on what to buy. She was nervous about being inside that apartment, especially after being so brutally hit by Kasuka's brother. The man had injured her badly, so she knew just how strong the older Heiwajima was. On the bright side, it didn't look like he recognized her, which was no surprise considering she had been wearing a costume.

"Are you okay?" Kasuka asked as he sat down next to her. "We'll keep you safe," and he felt relief when Ruri nodded. He liked her and he didn't want anything bad to happen to her. On the other hand, Kasuka knew that Shizuo was unhappy about the whole situation, but he didn't know what else to do. As much as he hated to admit, Shizuo could protect Ruri if need be, and while Kasuka was not weak himself, he lacked his brother's monstrous strength. Besides, the stalker would have to be insane to attack them inside the apartment belonging to the strongest man in Ikebukuro. As for his brother, regardless of what Shizuo had done, he didn't think him capable of hurting Ruri. Kasuka himself would be there to protect her no matter what.

"I'll be right back," Shizuo mumbled unhappily as he left the small hallway and headed towards the bedroom. The whole situation was pissing him off, especially since he wanted to rest and yet he had no choice but to get dressed again and go buy food when he himself was starving. A growl left his lips as he locked the door behind him, and after shoving his hands inside his pockets, he made his way towards the nearest store.

Inside the apartment, Kasuka was worried about the sleeping arrangements. No matter how he looked at it, there was no way he'd sleep with Ruri. They might've told the press they were together, but the two of them were mostly strangers, so sleeping in the same room was simply inappropriate. He knew that Shizuo told him to sleep in there with her as revenge for not telling him the truth, but Kasuka refused to listen to his brother's nonsense. "Ruri-san, I'll go clean my brother's room for you," he told her as he stood up, but when he tried to move away, she tightly gripped his sleeve.

"There's no need for that. I'm already grateful for all your help."

"I want to." When she finally released his sleeve, he made his way to the bedroom. Shizuo's room was not exactly a mess, but nor was it clean. Clothes had been thrown haphazardly on the bed and there were a few empty pudding cups. "Really, nii-san? You could at least throw them out after you eat this stuff," he complained as he picked up the small containers and threw them into a bag before picking up the clothes and folding them neatly. He only left out what Shizuo was wearing when he had opened the door. By the time he was done making the room look somewhat presentable, Shizuo came back from the store. Remembering how Ruri had been afraid of his brother for some reason, Kasuka rushed back to the living room.

"I got what you wanted," Shizuo stated as he handed Kasuka the bag.

Kasuka thanked him and they both went into the kitchen to unload the stuff.

"Were you about to eat when we showed up?"

Shizuo nodded as he poured the lukewarm water into the sink.

"It's okay, nii-san. I'll cook something and we'll all eat together." Kasuka felt a bit excited at the thought of eating with his brother, especially since they hadn't had dinner together in a very long time. "What would you like?"

Awkwardly scratching the back of his head, Shizuo gave the question some thought. He normally ate junk food, so to eat a proper meal sounded heavenly. He didn't even know what to ask for, especially after picking up so much stuff. "Hmm, I think I'd like some―" He never got to finish though because he heard a knock on the door and both of them went on alert. Shizuo was the first to break the silence. "It can't be the stalker. He wouldn't knock." When Kasuka nodded, Shizuo made his way to the door, never expecting to find an almost frantic-looking Izaya with his hand in mid-air as he was about to knock again.

"Shizu-chan, we need to talk." Without waiting for a reply, he pushed past the beast and went inside the apartment, but he stopped in his tracks when he noticed Ruri on the couch and Kasuka standing at the door leading to the kitchen. "Ah... I apologize. I didn't know you had guests."

"What do you want, Izaya?" Kasuka asked in a tone that was anything but friendly.

The corners of Izaya's lips went up into a nasty smile, and before Shizuo could ask him the same question, he turned to the blond. "We need to talk, in private."

"Why would my brother―"

"Kasu-chan, I suggest you stay out of it. Instead, worry about protecting Ruri-san, ne?"

Everyone in the room tensed at the remark. Obviously, Izaya knew about the stalker, most likely from TV, and both Shizuo and Kasuka knew that the man wouldn't hesitate to reveal her location if it would somehow benefit him.

"Fine, come with me," Shizuo said with a growl as he grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him up the stairs and towards the building's rooftop. As they made their way there, Izaya didn't struggle to free himself once, which somewhat confused Shizuo. He only released him when they got there. The first thing he did was to fish out the cigarettes so that he could fill his lungs with nicotine, but he ended up shoving it back into his pocket with a sigh when he noticed how faint Izaya looked as those red eyes fell on the pack in his hands. "I forgot you can't stand the smoke."

"I could never stand the smoke, Shizu-chan." Cigarettes were unhealthy and they smelled terrible, but there was more to it than that.

"You never complained before," Shizuo pointed out as he leaned against the rail. Luckily, the thing was sturdy, otherwise he might've ended up as nothing more than a stain on the pavement below.

Izaya approached the rail as well and rested his arm against it, looking far into the distance and wearing a tortured expression on his face. "Before, it was just something annoying, but now I associate the smell with that night," he told his archenemy. The more Shizuo hurt, the better. All the embarrassing things he'd told the blond were meant to further increase the idiot's guilt. Izaya was not one to flaunt around his weaknesses, but when it came to Shizuo, he wanted the man to know everything, because the protozoan seemed to drown in guilt every time Izaya revealed more of the things that Shizuo had succeeded in breaking inside of him.

Instead of the usual apologies, Shizuo stayed silent, head downcast and eyes fixed on the ground.

"I can still smell it, you know?" Izaya continued, hoping to further push the knife into Shizuo's beastly heart. "That disgusting smell embedded in your fingers as you covered my mouth, and that same disgusting smell you breathed out as you kept asking me questions meant to humiliate me: 'How does it feel to be fucked raw by the person you hate the most?' and 'Broken already, flea?' And then, when the pain in my stabbed leg turned unbearable, you said 'It's supposed to hurt, you dumb fuck!'" Izaya nearly chocked on that last word, dizziness suddenly overtaking him to the point that he had to step away from the rail least he wanted to end up accidentally falling the moment he was hit by vertigo.

Guilt viciously feasted on him as Shizuo watched Izaya move away from the edge on unsteady legs. The flea looked like he was one step away from passing out, and even though Shizuo was tempted to go help him, he didn't dare. Instead, he chose to ask him if he was fine.

Izaya was anything but fine, but that wasn't something Shizuo needed to know, so he waved a dismissive hand. "I'll be okay. More importantly, we have things to talk about."

Stepping away from the rail as well, Shizuo approached Izaya. "Right, why are you here?"

"I'm here because of this," Izaya said as he handed Shizuo the note, "and this," he then added after passing him the printed image as well. Judging by Shizuo's confused expression, the protozoan obviously had no idea what was going on, so after letting out a sigh, Izaya proceeded to explain to the idiot before him why they were screwed. "The day you were released by the police, I found the note under my door. Whoever sent this note knows about what happened that night." Izaya's voice was shaky, the terror crawling beneath his skin almost making him shiver.

"You can't hide the truth forever," Shizuo read it out loud before he turned the sheet of paper around. "This could be about anything. After all, you're an Informant," Shizuo remarked, his expression set into one of disgust. He'd always hated Izaya for buying and selling information like it was nothing.

Izaya shook his head in disbelief. "Are you really this dense? The other one I found this morning. Look at the image, just look at it!"

Head slightly tilted to the side, Shizuo's eyes roamed over the image. The only thing he saw in it was Izaya. "Oh..." he exclaimed when he finally realized in front of which building the photo had been taken. "What were you doing in front of my apartment building?"

"Are you really this stupid?" Izaya roared and grabbed the two items from Shizuo's hands. "It was that day when I showed up at your apartment and I fell asleep on your couch. Obviously, someone followed me there and then stayed the entire time until I left in the morning. That note plus the image obviously indicate that someone knows you raped me, you un-evolved life form!" he roared again, and before he could control himself, he raised a fist and crashed it into Shizuo's right cheek, the beast's head flying to the side. Realizing what he'd just done, he dropped the note and the paper and jumped backwards as he pulled out his switchblades and flicked them open.

Shizuo, who was still a bit stunned by the outburst, slowly rotated his head until their eyes met. A part of him, the Ikebukuro monster part of him to be more precise, wanted to smash Izaya's head into the ground and then throw the bastard off the building. Kill, kill, kill, this part of him echoed in his head and he let out a dangerous growl while his eyes burned with hatred as he glared at the smaller man who had dared to punch him in the face. Those red eyes were filled with fear though, and whenever Shizuo gazed at them, he couldn't help but remember the broken, bleeding creature lying in a pool of its own blood and trembling in both terror and cold as the monster that had just tore it to pieces towered over it.

Unclenching his fists, he closed his eyes and inhaled and exhaled a few times, hoping that when he opened them again, he wouldn't feel the urge to beat Izaya bloody. He reacted like that because he's scared , he tried convincing himself. Finding excuses for Izaya was a good step towards calming down. If someone really knows, then his pride must be in tatters, more than it already was. Besides, it wasn't like the punch hurt. In fact, he could've stopped it before the hit even landed, but he feared that he might obliterate that frail wrist. Once again, Izaya looked like a cornered injured animal and Shizuo didn't want the man to lash out at him out of fear. Calm down, Heiwajima Shizuo; you can do it, he continued to repeat inside his head until he finally let out a sigh and opened his eyes. "You're right. It's about that night."

Seeing that Shizuo had no intention of attacking him, Izaya slowly lowered his arms but still didn't pocket the switchblades. He didn't trust the beast; he never had.

"Mhm; it's what I've been saying from the start."

With a nod, Shizuo shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Any clues on who's behind this?"

"I have a few ideas, but I can't go asking them about it. I'd be revealing our sordid secret to more people by doing so." Now that they were back to talking like two civilized adults, he pocketed his switchblades and kept his hands inside the pockets of his jacket. Because of the accursed note, he'd barely gotten any sleep, and he also hadn't been able to eat anything. It wasn't even that cold outside, but the exhaustion was starting to catch up to him. "There's a way we can find out who did this, or at least find someone who could lead us to the person behind all of this. It's why I came here to begin with. I've been going around Shinjuku since I got it, asking people if they remembered printing this for someone, but no one recognized it. The image might've been printed in Ikebukuro. I can't do this alone," Izaya admitted. "Follow me so that we can make a copy, and then we'll both ask around."

Shizuo's hands balled into fists inside his pockets, but after about a minute or so of tense silence, he relaxed them and agreed to help Izaya. He didn't like the idea of anyone blackmailing either of them with what happened that night. Too many people already knew about it and such sneaky games, with notes and images, really pissed him off. The two of them made their way to the nearest store, and after making a copy of the image, they both went in different directions. They agreed to meet downtown in about five hours, which suited Shizuo just fine because he couldn't wait to grab some food.

With a growling stomach, he went from store to store, each time walking out angrier than when he walked in. No one knew anything, and since Izaya wasn't calling him, the flea was obviously not having any luck either. "Fuck!" he cursed and punched a wall, the skin of his knuckles splitting the moment it made contact with the hard surface. Shizuo didn't care though, just like he didn't care that his punch had left a crater behind it. Instead, he reclined against the wall and lit up another cigarette. He'd been chain-smoking them since the second he split up from Izaya. He didn't even want to think about what the flea had said, but the bastard's words still echoed in his head: 'I can still smell it, you know?'

Izaya might've thought that Shizuo was stupid, but while he wasn't exactly as intelligent as the insect, he wasn't as dumb as people thought he was. The reason why Izaya couldn't stand the smoke was because the man was traumatized, and Shizuo had no idea if Izaya would ever be able to overcome the trauma. The fact that he'd burned him with the cigarette that night only made things worse. Once he finished smoking the cigarette, he headed towards the meeting place, but a group of teenage girls pissed him off by giggling like idiots and squealing while looking at him. "Beat it!" he snarled, and luckily, the girls ran away screeching in fear. "Tch!" lately, more and more girls were acting like that and it was pissing him off to no end.

"No luck here. How about you?" He'd hoped that Shizuo had had more luck, but judging by the irritated look on the beast's face, neither of them had succeeded in finding the culprit.

"I need something to eat," Shizuo declared, and when Izaya tried to protest, he cut him off with a murderous glare. "Actually, I need to relieve myself first," he said, frowning, and made his way toward the nearest public bathroom. He was about to go in when he ended up getting stuck at the door when the flea tried to go in as well. Immediately, the two of them took a step back and glared at each other.

"I have to go too," Izaya declared.

Shizuo's eyes narrowed into murderous slits. "I'm not stopping you."

With a gasp of disbelief, Izaya infinitesimally moved backwards a bit. "You think I'd go in there with you?"

Shizuo shrugged and went in, leaving a fuming Izaya outside the door. He'd been holding it in for far too long and there was a limit as to how well he would treat the flea.

Outside the bathroom, Izaya was whimpering in agony. He doubted he could hold it in any longer, so after he gathered his courage, he stormed into the bathroom, entered a stall and slammed the door behind him.

His hands trembled as he unzipped his pants, and even though the beast was outside, he chose to ignore the monster's presence least he wanted to throw up right there and then.

As he zipped up his pants, Shizuo stopped himself from mocking Izaya by calling him a girl for hiding inside the bathroom stall. After what had happened between them, he really couldn't blame the man. Izaya looked paler than usual when he stepped out, but when he saw him heading towards the door, Shizuo called out. "Are you really going to leave here without washing your hands? I always thought you were a dirty bastard, but this just confirms it," he said, smirking. As expected, Izaya stopped in his tracks and turned around, his expression now set into a murderous glare. Shizuo had to admit that he preferred an angry Izaya over a terrified one any day of the week.

Izaya let out a sneer as he made his way to the sink where he washed his hands before rushing out of the bathroom, Shizuo following closely behind me.

"Food, now," Shizuo ordered as he grabbed Izaya by the hood and steered him in the direction of the nearest decent place where they could grab something to eat.

"Hey!" Izaya protested weakly. Truth be told, he was having a hard time standing up after starving himself for so long, and as much as he didn't exactly feel like eating, he knew he needed energy if he wanted to continue looking for the culprit. When it was like that, with Shizuo grabbing him without being angry at him, Izaya didn't feel like he was in danger around him. It was during the moments when Shizuo looked like he was about to murder him that Izaya was reminded just how dangerous the man was. "Let me guess," Izaya said in an amused tone as he sat down at the table. "You're going to order cake, or something like that."

Shizuo shot him a disbelieving look. "Like hell I will! I want a big bowl of ramen. I haven't eaten anything today."

"I haven't eaten anything in... a week," Izaya said absentmindedly as he signaled the waiter to come over. In the end, they had both agreed that a restaurant was a far better choice than eating somewhere outside where everyone could see them together. "I'll have otoro, while the gentleman here will have the largest portion of ramen you can make."

Meanwhile, Shizuo was still so shocked by Izaya's confession that he didn't even know what to say. How did the flea even function without any food? It really was no wonder that the man was so skinny, that baggy jacket most likely hiding just how malnourished Izaya was. Shizuo couldn't even go one day without food, and yet Izaya hadn't eaten in so long. It also made him wonder just how long he'd starved himself to look that skinny back when the two of them had met at Shinra's apartment a few weeks after the alley 'incident.' "Flea," he finally said when he found his voice, "you should eat more or you're really gonna end up looking like a flea."

Unable to keep it in, Izaya burst into laughter. For a beast, Shizuo could be quite funny at times. "Wouldn't that be perfect though? I'd be the insect you've always accused me of being."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather have the old Izaya back." The words left Shizuo's mouth before he could stop himself and he ended up looking away embarrassed when he realized what he'd just said.

"Neither of us can go back to what we used to be... not anymore."

"I know," Shizuo said, looking pensive, and the two of them waited for the food and then ate in silence. Izaya mostly picked at the food while Shizuo wolfed down the ramen, but after about half an hour of waiting for the flea to finish eating, Shizuo decided he'd had enough. "If you're not gonna eat, then let's go," he muttered unhappily as he got up. When Izaya weakly nodded, they both left the restaurant after paying for their respective meals.

Izaya gave him instructions on where to search next, and just as they were about to head in different directions, a string of giggles erupted from somewhere behind him. The two of them turned to see what it was all about, but instead of the girls running away after seeing their murderous glares, they continued to giggle and whisper things into each other's ears.

"Ne, ne, what's so funny?" Izaya inquired, smiling.

Shizuo on the other hand, growled out the words. "Yeah, what's so funny?"

Instead of answering, the girls burst into laughter and ran away. Normally, Shizuo and Izaya wouldn't have thought much of it, but the same scenario had happened several times that day and seeing how one of them even took a picture of them, they both found it to be extremely suspicious. Without a second thought, they ran after them, making the girls scream in fear when the three of them realized they had just incurred the wrath of two very dangerous people. No one knew Ikebukuro's streets better than Ikebukuro's two strongest people, so after splitting up, they ended up trapping the girls into an alley.

"P-Please don't h-hurt us!" one of them begged pathetically. "We haven't d-done anything wrong."

"Quiet, Hime," the tallest of the three ordered as she stepped in front of her friends. "We've done nothing wrong," she then added, but before she even had a chance to protest, Izaya ripped the phone from her hand, dropped it on the dirty ground and stepped on it.

"Really now?" His smile was dangerous and it seemed to work because even the strongest of the three seemed too scared to complain about her broken phone. "I don't remember giving you permission to take my photo."

"It's a free country!" the third one shouted from behind the safety of her taller friend, but she ended up screeching when Shizuo punched the wall they were cuddled against.

"All of you have been talking shit behind our backs for the past few days. Tell me what's going on before I really lose it," he warned, his eyes burning with barely restrained fury. "TALK!" he snarled.

"A-An... a-add...ress," the one called Hime stuttered.

Izaya kicked away the broken phone before leaning in and slamming a hand against the wall, startling Hime so much that the girl burst into tears. "What address?"

"IT'S A SITE, OKAY?" the girl in the front shouted before she turned to her terrified friend and pulled her into a hug.

Pulling out his phone, Izaya dangled it in front of her. "Tell me the address, ne? I promise we'll let you go."

Glaring, the teenager finally revealed the mysterious address. "www dot Ikebukuro hyphen romance dot jp."

"Thank you," Izaya said with a smile and pulled back his arm. "Shizu-chan, let's go," he chirped as he made his way out of the alley. He thought it was best to put some distance between themselves and the girls, especially after scaring them so much. Normally, he wasn't so aggressive, but he was not in the mood for games. After about five minutes of walking, they stopped behind a big store, knowing that only the employees went there to drop the garbage. Either way, it was a place where they could talk in peace.

"Okay now, let's see," he said as he retrieved the phone from the pocket of his pants and typed the address while Shizuo continued to pace around like a lion trapped inside a cage. He knew that being alone with Shizuo was a bad idea, but he had more important things to worry about. When the site loaded, he blinked in confusion, but not even half a minute later he was overcome with nausea and he would've collapsed if not for Shizuo putting a break on his descent by wrapping an arm around his waist.

"Oi, what's wrong. Izaya! Oi!" Shizuo kept trying, but Izaya's only answer was a moan of agony as the man continued to grip the phone tightly even though he couldn't even stand on his own two feet anymore. Realizing that whatever was written on that phone was the cause of it, Shizuo ripped it from Izaya's cold fingers while ignoring the weak protest coming from the Informant. "What's gotten you so shocked?" he asked, frowning, but after reading a bit of what Izaya had read a few moments earlier, he felt quite faint himself. "What is... this?"

Notes:

At astroenergy's suggestion, I drew their meeting when Izaya shows up at Shizuo's apartment in Among The Ruins, Blind Fury and Mutual Consent. Click to see the drawings!

Chapter 50: Disintegration

As though he doubted his own eyes, Shizuo continued to read in disbelief.

Izaya's intense cries of ecstasy echoed throughout his enemy's small apartment as Ikebukuro's beast continued to thrust into him. He really couldn't think much whenever Shizuo unleashed his lust upon him, but it still amazed him how the man who claimed to hate him seemed so desperate to borrow himself deeper within him with each new forward motion. "Bea...ahh...st!" Izaya whispered besides Shizuo's ear as the man appeared to be dead set on driving his once enemy, now lover, to an early grave, the pleasure overload almost turning Izaya's brain to mush. "Shut up, flea," Shizuo said, grinning and―

"What the hell?" Shizuo couldn't help but cry out again. He felt his face heat up after reading a bit more of what was written, and no matter how much he wanted to erase it from his mind, he couldn't. What was written there was very different from what had happened back when Shizuo kept driving into Izaya with the sole intent of breaking the man to pieces. Izaya's moans had been of agony, not of pleasure, and Shizuo nearly felt sick as the two opposite images twisted and turned inside his head at a dizzying speed.

Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to wallow in misery, he couldn't afford it. His eyes fell on Izaya, the man's wan face making him worry. "Oi, flea," he tried, but Izaya seemed to be in a world of his own. "Izaya!" he tried again, but it didn't look like the poor man was able to comprehend a word he was saying. Seeing no other choice, he pocketed the phone, picked up Izaya into his arms and headed towards the restaurant's back door. It only took a few paces to reach it, but it was enough to make Shizuo worry when he realized that Izaya might've passed out. Raising a foot, he kicked the door open and walked inside.

"Hey, you're not allowed―" one of the employees tried, but he was cut off by the blond's angry growl.

"He passed out." Judging by the terrified look one of the people was giving him, the man knew who he was. "You," Shizuo barked his command, "help him!"

The man's face went as white as a sheet, but he nonetheless guided Shizuo to a nearby room where the employees ate or hung out during breaks. Immediately, Shizuo laid Izaya on the table and turned dangerous eyes towards the people trying to pell-mell into the room. "Leave!" he ordered, and even though most of them didn't seem to know who he was, they still made themselves scarce. "You stay," he then added as he pointed at the employee who'd shown him the room.

The man approached the terrifying duo that was Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya with legs weakened by the fear he felt rushing through his veins. Realizing that he had no choice but to help, even though he had no idea why Ikebukuro's monster would ever want to help Orihara Izaya, he picked up a glass of water, dove his fingers in it and then splashed some droplets on the pale face belonging to an extremely dangerous Informant. "Raise his legs," he instructed Shizuo while he struggled to take off Izaya's jacket, but he stopped when he heard a ferocious growl. The sound reverberated throughout his brain, and before he even knew what he was doing, he was down on his knees begging for forgiveness with his head touching the floor and his palms flat against the surface. "I'm sorry, please forgive me! I was just trying to loosen his jacket!" the man tried in an attempt to explain himself.

Shizuo felt a bit embarrassed for reacting that way, but he had a feeling that Izaya would not appreciate some stranger divesting him of his clothes even if it was only the jacket. "I'll do it," he informed the man as he pulled Izaya's arms out of the sleeves, wrapped an arm around the much smaller back and lifted it a bit higher to pull out the jacket from underneath the passed out form. It was almost ridiculous how gentle he was being to the insect, especially after what had happened that night, but what guided him was the suffocating guilt he felt towards the man and he had a feeling that he would never be able to rid himself of it for as long as he lived.

Seeing Izaya's unconscious form and feeling the bones beneath the baggy T-shirt served as further confirmation that Izaya was on a downwards spiral of blood, revenge and suffering. He remembered the strong body from back then, struggling to get away, the way those muscles had shook underneath the porcelain skin as Shizuo had restrained his prey and proceeded to utterly crush the man by shattering his soul and pride to a thousand pieces. Shizuo felt ashamed, but it was a feeling he was starting to get used to. Nothing would ever erase what he had done, the proof being right before his very eyes. "What now, ehh... what's your name?" he asked, hoping to distract himself from memories of Izaya screaming into his palm.

"Matsuda!" the man shouted as he jumped to his feet.

"Matsuda… Well, get on with it." As soon as he gave the green light, the man wet his hand again and ran it over Izaya's forehead, face, neck and collarbone before finally slapping him gently on the cheek.

"Orihara-san, wake up! Orihara-san!" Matsuda kept repeating and shaking him gently until what looked like red eyes, their color resembling that of blood, fixed him with their gaze. "Ori―" but the rest of the word ended up as nothing more than a squeak the moment he was pushed away by Ikebukuro's strongest. "Leave," he heard the man say, and he didn't need to be told twice. He rushed out the door and closed it behind him, relief overflowing for having survived the encounter.

Inside, Shizuo carefully moved Izaya's head in his direction, but judging by the hazy stare, it didn't look like Izaya was fully back. "Flea, are you okay?" he tried in a gentle tone, but then all hell broke lose when recognition came back to Izaya's blood-red orbs and the man (even though mere moments before had been unconscious) started struggling for all he was worth to get away from him. "Izaya, calm down!" he tried, but Izaya's eyes only grew wider with terror.

In his bleary mind, he was back in that alley, the place where he'd been stripped of his god-like status and flung down to a much lower level than even that of a regular human. He loathed those hazel eyes and their disgusting pale color, staring him down as though he was nothing more than an insect deserving to be squashed. Just like back then, the fear rushed through his veins like the blood pumping through them at such dizzying speed that he could almost hear the sound in his ears. He couldn't escape the beast. He wanted everything to stop, please stop, pleasestop, stop, stopstop, but the monster was enjoying himself too much to put a halt to his sordid activities before finally ruining him beyond repair.

"Izaya!" the sharp sound sliced through the fog in his mind, and it was then when he finally realized that he was cowering in the corner of a foreign room. Huh? Where was he? And why was Shizuo looking so broken when the monster had been the one doing the breaking? Slowly, he straightened his back as he took in his surroundings. He remembered the site, reading it, and how the disgusting words written on it had made him sick to the core of his very being. He remembered the dizziness and the nausea, and then nothing. He wasn't in that alley, bleeding on the dirty ground and feeling the heavy weight of the rain whipping his battered body. Inside this room it was dry and warm; he wasn't there.

Focusing on Shizuo again, who was standing still in the middle of the room, Izaya came to the conclusion that he must've passed out. A broken laugh almost spilled past his lips, but he pressed his lips tightly together to contain in. It was ridiculous, that he would end up getting help from this monster of a man who was the cause of everything that had gone wrong in his life. His eyes drifted over to the jacket placed on the chair next to the table and this time he couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. "Shizu-chan, were you trying to take advantage of me while I was unconscious?" Of course, the mere idea of what he was saying was making him sick, but he wanted to cover his own shame at having reacted in such a cowardly way by making Shizuo feel both embarrassed and insulted.

"I was just tryin' to help," Shizuo mumbled as he picked up the jacket and threw it in the insect's direction. Izaya was too slow to catch it in time, so when the clothing article fell on the floor, the man glared murder at him. Instead of apologizing, Shizuo shrugged and turned to leave. "I'll wait for you outside," he said over his shoulder as he walked out and closed the door behind him.

"I don't need your help, you dumb brute," Izaya mumbled to himself after Shizuo had left the room. His limbs were still shaking with fine tremors but he forced his weary body to bend down and pick up the jacket. "Ruining my coat wasn't enough for you?" he hissed between tightly clenched teeth as he proceeded to dust off his precious jacket. He couldn't help but wonder if the brute had carried him all the way to wherever he was. The simple thought brought a disgusting taste to his mouth on top of the bitter one, but he clicked his tongue and slowly made his way to the door. He wouldn't thank Shizuo for anything; after all, the monster didn't deserve his gratitude. Taking a deep breath, he forced a relaxed smile on his face before he pressed the door's handle and stepped out of the small room and into what appeared to be a restaurant's kitchen. "Ah," he exclaimed before he could stop himself. The people there were busy preparing food, but there was one person who was talking to Shizuo.

"I'm glad to see you're doing better," the stranger said, and Izaya's brow quirked upwards into a questioning manner.

"Thanks for your help," Shizuo told Matsuda before he headed towards the exit, Izaya chirping his thanks in a lively voice as he followed behind the monster of his nightmares. "You should go home for today," Shizuo told him as soon as they were outside. "You don't look too well."

"Do you really think I'll stop now?" Izaya nearly spat out the words in disgust.

The urge to smack Izaya unconscious almost overwhelmed Shizuo for a moment, but instead he balled his hands into tight fists and shoved them inside the pockets of his jacket. "What are you planning now?"

"We'll continue looking for the person who requested for the picture to be printed, and in the meantime, I'll call one of my contacts," Izaya said, the corners of his lips going upwards into a disturbing smile that promised pain and suffering to whoever had been unlucky enough to incur the Informant's wrath.

Shizuo nodded and handed him the phone. Izaya glowered at him for a few moments, but instead of starting another fight, he took it from the beastly hand and they both headed towards the next store. Izaya walked beside him, talking on the phone with someone and ordering that person to find the owner of that messed up site, even if that meant hacking it. Truth be told, Shizuo wanted to know just as badly if not more. Instead of splitting up again, they continued to walk together, ignoring the strange looks some people were giving them once in a while. There were only a few stores left to check, and they were all in the same direction, so there was no point in splitting up, especially after Izaya had passed out.

The man still looked as white as a ghost, and despite his dislike for the insect, Shizuo didn't want him to end up passing out in the middle of the street. It was ridiculous that he even cared as much as he did, but he guessed that he didn't want to add to his already mountain-high guilt. What he wanted was to atone for his sins, and even though he was certain that Izaya would never forgive him, he still couldn't stop trying to achieve redemption somehow. His apologies meant nothing to Izaya, but helping the man made him feel better in a selfish kind of way and he'd take every opportunity he got to lessen the guilt weighting on both his heart and mind. "About earlier..." he spoke softly when he realized that Izaya might be embarrassed about it, "I shouldn't have touched you. I had no choice though."

Izaya let out long sigh and slipped cold hands into the pockets of his jacket. His fingers brushed against the neatly folded sheet of paper and he wondered if he'd ever find the one responsible for forcing him into such a situation that he'd require Shizuo's help. His eyes drifted over to the blond's twitching fingers and he knew how hard the beast was struggling to not smoke in his presence. The monster was still a monster, but at least he was trying to be considerate. Finally, when he senses Shizuo's stare boring holes into his form, Izaya let out a sound of annoyance and stopped in his tracks. "Forget what you saw. It doesn't concern you anyway."

"It doesn't concern me?" Shizuo asked in disbelief as he balled his hands into fists and glared at Izaya with burning hazel eyes.

"It doesn't," Izaya repeated and then continued to walk, leaving a stunned Shizuo behind. Just when he thought that the beast would no longer follow him, he heard hurried footsteps heading towards him. They were walking side by side again, two enemies being forced to work together because of certain circumstances beyond their control. A nasty smile spread across his face and he turned to Shizuo. "Even I can get startled by your ugly face."

The urge to throttle Izaya surged from somewhere deep within, but Shizuo shoved it back and continued to follow the man. It was just like Izaya to use jokes and insults to squeeze through tough conversations and situations and Shizuo thought that Izaya had never resembled a bratty child as much as he did right then. As always, Izaya's mocking glare made him want to punch the bastard so that he could once again wipe that disgusting smirk off that irritating face. Deciding that it was best to ignore the flea, he kept his mouth shut and continued to follow the bastard to the next store, which also turned out to be a dead end, as did the following three, but on the fifth one the clerk seemed to remember having printed that picture a few days earlier.

Izaya's heart beat wildly inside his chest as he pulled out some money and placed them on the counter. "If you can describe to me how that person looked like, these," and here he tapped the bills with his index finger, "are yours." After so many days of torment and fear, he'd finally caught a lead and he wasn't about to waste the opportunity to find out everything there was to know about the person who had dared to torment him.

The man's eyes glowed. It looked like his salary for a whole week. He coughed, almost chocking at the thought of getting the money so easily. "It was a woman." The finger tapping on the bills stopped and the blond man's brows furrowed in something that looked like seething fury. Judging by their expression, they were desperate to know who this woman was. Putting on an innocent smile, he sighed loudly. "My memory is a bit hazy when it comes to what she looked like," he said in the hope of getting more money, but then his small beady eyes met the almost crimson ones of the man offering him the money for the information and the chill he felt as they stared at one another made him spew the description before he even knew what he'd done. "She was wearing a black hat and a long sleeved, black matching dress with black ankle boots. She was carrying a small silver sash bag. She had dark brown eyes and her side bangs reached her chin!"

Both Shizuo and Izaya stood there frozen for a few moments, until Izaya raised his hand and pulled out his phone. He dialed as he exited the store, Shizuo following behind him in a numb sort of state. "Did you find out anything?" Izaya asked, but when he heard the other man chuckle into the phone, he barely stopped himself from hurling it to the ground. "Onishi," he growled out the name in an uncharacteristic way, and it seemed like the other had picked up on the not so subtle threat because he gave a long sigh before finally telling him what he wanted to know.

"Karisawa Erika. About the payment... this wasn't easy you know? I expect―"

Izaya ended the call. He was gripping the device so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.

"Whose site is it?" Shizuo inquired.

"Karisawa," was Izaya's simple answer. He'd been stupid to assume that it was about the rape when the disgusting woman had most likely been referring to his non-existent relationship with Shizuo. He should've seen it, but he'd been so blinded by fear that he couldn't see past what was in front of him. The site, the giggles, the note, the stalking, they were all obvious signs of a disgusting fujoshi trying to get him and the monster together. Out of nowhere, he started laughing, a laugh so insane that made Shizuo take a step backwards. "Stupid, so stupid, stupidstupid," Izaya kept repeating the words like a mantra as he made his way towards the place where he knew Erika liked to hang out.

If they were lucky, she'd be alone, and even if she wasn't, he still had no plans of letting her go. Her stupid assumption had nearly driven him to despair and he wasn't about to let it slide. The fujoshi would pay for having played such games with him. Suddenly, as though he'd forgotten Shizuo was even there, he cast the man a glance, and judging by the stiff posture, the twitching fingers and the veins protruding on the beast's forehead, he too was beyond pissed at the stupid woman. For once, they shared a common goal, which was to make Karisawa Erika pay. Izaya's hand tightened around the handle of the switchblades in his pockets as he fantasized of a few ways on how to carve that skin as punishment for what she'd done.

"Ne, Shizu-chan, do you want me to tell you something else that Kasuka said?"

Shizuo's head snapped in Izaya's direction and he let out a small sound of annoyance. "I'm not in the mood for your games right now," he hissed.

"No games. Just follow my lead with Karisawa and I'll tell you something interesting. I promise~! Don't look at me like that, ne? I'm not going to hurt her. I'm not a monster," he then added, pouting.

Izaya's word didn't mean much to Shizuo, but he nodded nonetheless.

As expected, she was inside one of the manga stores, but she wasn't alone. Pulling out the phone again, he looked through his contacts list and pressed enter after finding her number. "Shizu-chan and I have a confession to make." As soon as he finished saying those words, he heard her squeal into the phone and he had to try really hard to not let the disgust he felt seep into his voice as he spoke his next words. "We're outside the store," he chirped in a cheerful manner and waved when Erika turned to look out the window, "so can you come outside for a second? Alone if possible." As if on cue, the woman dashed out of the store and nearly got hit by a car as she attempted to cross the street without looking left and right.

"Kyaa! I knew Izayan and Shizu-Shizu were an item, but everyone else thought I was crazy!" Her eyes glowed brightly as her gaze moved from one to the other, her perverted brain already coming up with a few ideas for her next Shizaya one-shot.

Smiling, Izaya wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started leading her away. "I'll tell you more, but not here~!" Seeing her nod frantically, he steered her in the direction of a less populated area. Shizuo wasn't saying anything, but he had a feeling that the monster was having a hard time not bashing Karisawa's head into the nearest wall. Shizuo might've been a stupid protozoan, but it seemed like even his two neurons were able to put two and two together and figure out that Erika was behind the note and the picture.

"Is Shizu-Shizu the beast I imagine him to be in bed?" she asked excitedly, not yet realizing that she was being led towards a construction site.

"Mhmm," Izaya confirmed with a large, fake smile on his face. "Beast is an understatement~!" Izaya sang, but right at that moment Shizuo let out a terrifying growl, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand out. "Come now, Shizu-chan, there's no point in hiding it any longer. Karisawa is just trying to help. The note, the picture, the fanfiction. Oh, the fanfiction~!"

"You liked that? Erika squealed, her face going as red as a tomato. I... I wasn't sure if I got it right."

As though he was trying to reassure a lamb being led to slaughter, Izaya raised his arm and gently patted her on the head. "It was fine." A look at Shizuo confirmed that the beast was one step away from losing it and it surprised him that he hadn't even noticed when the blond had uprooted a stop sign from the side of the street. Ikebukuro's monster's whole body was shaking with fury, and before Shizuo lost it and really killed the stupid woman, Izaya pushed her so hard that she ended up falling on her knees.

She let out a strangled cry of pain and it was only then when she realized where they were. "What's go―" She didn't get to finish though, because a stop sign embedded itself into the ground next to her and she ended up screaming in terror. As the stop sign was pulled out, she stumbled to her feet and away, now facing what appeared to be two very enraged and very dangerous men. "W-What is going―?" she repeated in a shaky voice, but she choked on the words when Izaya slowly pulled out the switchblades from inside the pockets of his jacket, slowly, slowly, almost as if to prolong the terror he knew she was most likely feeling. For the first time in her life, Karisawa Erika feared for her life.

"Did you think that you could play with me, Orihara Izaya?"

"I... I..." she stuttered, her back now pressed against a wall. "I was j-just fighting for l-love."

"Love?" Izaya spoke the words with such disgust that Erika was starting to doubt her theory about the two of them being in love. "The only thing we share is mutual hatred."

"I hate this bastard," Shizuo spat out the words before he took a step in Erika's direction, the noise of the stop sign as it was getting dragged across the ground making her body tremble in fear.

"And I despise this monster," Izaya added as he too moved closer, the moonlight reflected in one of his switchblades making Erika flinch when the light hit her eyes.

She felt her knees go weak, and before the two could grab her, she broke into a sprint. She didn't want to admit it, but it looked like she'd made a mistake and it was all she could think about as she squeezed between a fence and a wall and ran across the construction site in the hope of finding the guard there. "Help!" she shouted as soon as she spotted him, but she screeched when the man was sent flying by none other than Ikebukuro's beast.

"Erika-chan, you can't escape us," a malicious voice spilled from the darkness on her left, looking as though Izaya was materializing in front of her very eyes as the man moved in her direction. "Ne, Shizu-chan, how should we punish her?" the Informant's voice pierced her mind with its coldness and her eyes darted between the red and yellow eyes of the two predators.

"I don't particularly like to hurt women, but I think she won't complain too much if we break an arm or two, considering the shit she pulled," Shizuo spoke in a serious tone as he raised his arm and rested the pipe on his shoulder.

"You heard him~!" Izaya sang out, but instead of attacking her he walked slowly towards her, wanting the terror to sink into her very soul so that she would never screw with either of them again. As expected, she bolted yet again, but instead of chasing right away, they gave her the chance to hide. "Erika-chan~! You can't escape us! We're going to find you~!"

"Aren't we taking this too far?" Shizuo asked in a low voice so that Erika couldn't hear them.

"It's fine, it's fine; we're just playing a bit, s'all!" he assured the other while smiling sadistically. Obviously, he had no plans on actually hurting the woman, but he wasn't about to let her get away with almost driving him to despair and keeping him awake for days on end while all he could think about was that someone else knew his shameful secret. Oh no, Karisawa Erika would pay; he would make sure of it.

Shizuo let out a sigh before he lowered the stop sign and continued to drag it after him as he started looking for Erika. While he was pretty pissed about the whole thing, he had to admit that it was stupidly funny too. The two of them had freaked out over nothing, and instead of seeking revenge on the silly woman, he was simply relieved that no one else knew what really happened that night. Sure, the fanfiction, the stares and the giggles were annoying as fuck, but it wasn't serious enough to break Karisawa's bones over it. Still, the whole thing had nearly driven Izaya to insanity, and if scaring her was what the flea needed to calm down, then so be it. The alternative was to leave Izaya to take revenge by himself, but he had a feeling that it would be extremely dangerous for Karisawa. Izaya still pissed him off to no end, especially because of Kasuka, but Shizuo liked to believe that he wasn't evil enough to hurt people over something as stupid as a fujoshi's assumption that the two of them were romantically involved. Truth be told, he was tired as hell, and all he wanted was to get some sleep and then deal with Kasuka somehow.

"Erika-chan~!" Izaya called out as he started searching around the construction site, his cheerfully sadistic voice heightening the terror Erika felt at being hunted by Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya.

With trembling hands she pulled out her phone and dialed Dotachin's number. "H-Help, please! They're really going to k-kill me!"

"Wait, what's going on?" Kadota asked in a voice filled with worry. "Where are you?"

"The construction site closest to the store we were in earl―kyaa!" she screamed and dropped the phone as she scrambled to get away.

 

"I found you~!" Izaya chirped happily from behind her as he started running after her. Shizuo blocked her path, so she turned right and disappeared inside the not yet finished building. "Well, this is going to be fun," he commented as he followed her inside, Shizuo letting out a long sigh before he too went into the building.

Izaya was reminding him of a vicious cat playing with its food, and even though Karisawa had pissed him off as well, he was starting to feel sorry for her. They went from hallway to hallway and from empty apartment to empty apartment, Izaya singing an indecipherable creepy song that made Shizuo's hair stand on end. Just as he was about to finally call it a night and tell Izaya that he was done playing games, he heard a scream from the apartment Izaya had just gone into. Immediately he rushed there and found Erika in the corner looking scared out of her mind.

"Imsorrypleasedontkillme!" she shouted, the terror of it all finally getting to her. She wasn't a coward, but Orihara Izaya was a terrifying man and she knew well enough what had happened in the past to those who had pissed off the Informant.

"Shizuo, Izaya, are you crazy?" Kadota's voice boomed in the empty apartment from somewhere behind them and they both turned around to face the man. The fact that Izaya had his switchblades out and that Shizuo was carrying a stop sign while Erika looked terrified didn't help matters either.

Izaya let out a puff of hot air, as though to expel the disgust he felt inside him by simply being in such a situation to begin with. Without any explanation, he pulled out the phone from his jacket pocket, as well as the printed image and the note and made his way towards Kadota while Walker ran out to Erika. First, he handed his former schoolmate the note, then the picture, and finally he showed him some of the stuff written on the site, leaving Kadota standing there with his mouth agape, an expression of revulsion mixed with disbelief plastered all over his face. "Not only has she been sending me anonymous notes and stalking me, but she even wrote this... this disgusting thing you see here. Because of what's written here, now more and more people laugh whenever they see either me or Shizu-chan. Tell me, Dotachin, how would you feel if someone wrote something like this about you and Walker, or about you and Saburo?"

Kadota was in so much shock that he needed a few moments to recover enough so that he could answer. "I'd be pretty pissed." Even if Erika was his friend, he knew that this time she'd gone too far. Even so, he couldn't let the two of them hurt her. "I'll make sure she doesn't do this type of thing again, so how about you let her go this time?" he attempted to negotiate, but he felt a chill run down his spine when Izaya's expression turned sadistic enough to scare even someone like him. The man's almost crimson eyes spoke of some insanity hidden in their depths, and even though he'd always known that Izaya was dangerous, only now he was finally seeing what everyone else had been talking about. Between a pissed off Shizuo and a hell-bent on revenge Izaya, he and Walker couldn't do a thing to protect Erika. His eyes drifted over to Walker, and even though it looked like he was protecting her with his own body, he knew that all it took was one hit from Shizuo to knock him unconscious. "Shizuo," he then spoke in a calm voice, even though on the inside he was anything but calm, "you're not seriously planning to hurt Karisawa, are you?"

Instead of answering, Shizuo gripped the stop sign tighter, the metal bending beneath his fingers. He wasn't planning to hurt Erika, but he was supposed to follow Izaya's lead, so he chose to remain silent. He wanted to know what Kasuka had said. He was desperate to know anything about his little brother, even if that meant making a deal with the devil that was Orihara Izaya. Besides, Izaya had promised that he wouldn't hurt her, and judging by what had happened until then, the insect was keeping his word.

"Stop bothering Shizu-chan, ne? I'm willing to let her go on one condition," Izaya said, his dark chuckle resonating throughout the empty apartment.

Kadota nodded. "What do you want?"

"Bring here all of Karisawa's manga books and anime DVDs and then we'll let her go." It was a simple request, but everyone there seemed to be taken aback by it.

"No!" Erika shrieked in horror! "I won't ever―" She didn't get to finish though because Walker clamped a hand over her mouth. She started struggling to free herself, knowing that she had to get home and protect her precious collection, but Walker told her to stop in what was a really harsh tone. Suddenly, she went limp in his arms. If even Walker wasn't on her side then... A tear slid down her face, and then another, and when Walker released her, she ended up on her knees, sobbing.

Walker thought about different ways to get out of there with Erika, but all of them involved hurting either Shizuo or Izaya and not even he was willing to go that far for some manga. Besides, they could always buy more. Before making his final decision, he walked up to Izaya and asked to see the site too. Flipping through the text, he ended up shaking his head in disbelief. He knew Erika was into Yaoi, but to use real life people for her fantasies was wrong on too many levels. He gave a nod to Kadota's questioning gaze and then went back to Erika.

"Fine, I'll be back," Kadota muttered unhappily as he made his way out of the empty apartment.

Inside, Walker sat down next to Erika and pulled her into his arms while Shizuo finally dropped the stop sign, the sound it made as it collided with the floor making everyone there wince. "Izaya, come here for a bit," he requested, and they both made their way to the door which was far enough for Walker and Erika to not hear them talking while at the same time blocking their only way out. "You're going to destroy her manga?"

"Bingo! Oh, Shizu-chan, you amaze me!"

Izaya's smirk was annoying, but instead of punching him in the face, Shizuo stepped out so that he could light a cigarette. "I'll be right back," he told the man and raised the hand holding the pack when he noticed the questioning look in those brown-red eyes. It was only after he put enough distance between himself and Izaya that he lit up the cigarette and took a much needed drag from it. It'd been a crazy day and there was only so much he could stand before finally snapping and indulging in his vice. He almost felt dirty somehow for playing along and scaring Kariswa, but it was the only way to make Izaya reveal that something the bastard had mentioned earlier.

After his too many fights with Kasuka, he hoped that he could learn something which would help him figure out his little brother. Even though they were brothers, there was only so much Shizuo could understand when it came to Kasuka. They were like night and day, and even though sometimes they met halfway, most of the times he was having a hard time understand what was going on in his little brother's head. He let out a long sigh and went back inside the apartment. He felt a bit bad at seeing Erika bawl her eyes out, but he knew that once Izaya set his mind on something, no one could do anything to change it. He didn't say anything when their eyes briefly met and instead he leaned against the wall and stared out the empty window as they waited.

About an hour later, Kadota showed up. "They're in the van," he mumbled as he led the way.

With a spring in his step, Izaya followed Dotachin down the stairs and then towards the parked van. "Carry them over there," he ordered as he pointed to a rather empty space inside the construction site. Walker was carrying Erika more than she was walking herself, but Izaya made sure to keep an eye on them in case they tried to make a run for it. He knew that he was being a bit petty about the whole thing, but goddam if he wasn't pissed about it, especially since the note had led to several breakdowns while he stressed over who might've known his secret. His eyes glowed brighter with each new stack of manga they placed on the dirty ground, and once they were done he turned to Shizuo and asked him for the lighter.

"No! Please, anything but that!" Erika cried in despair as Izaya picked up one of the manga books and lit it up before dropping it on top of the others, her precious treasure going out in flames. She was in Hell. Her beloved BL manga, as well as all the others she had gathered over the years were burning under her very eyes and there was nothing she could do about it. Not even the DVDs were spared, and she ended up crying anew as she crumpled to the ground in despair.

"Ahh ha ha ha!" Izaya roared with laughter as he watched her cry her heart out. The glare she shot him was pathetic more than anything else, but that only made him laugh harder. Finally, when everything was aflame, he handed the lighter back to Shizuo and walked away, ignoring the idiot Dotachin's furious glare as well as Walker's murderous stare that he could almost feel burning holes into him. "Oh, and I want that site gone by tomorrow morning," he told Erika over his shoulder before resuming his pace.

"That was very cruel," Shizuo commented as they made their way to the main street.

"If that was cruel, then what do you call what you've done to me, hmm?" Izaya asked, his tone sounding spiteful. "You don't have any right to judge me, beast." He didn't even glance at Shizuo, sick of seeing that stupid guilty look the brute always gave him whenever he reminded him of that night. "As for Kasuka, he said that he's more of a monster than you and I will ever be."

"What does that mean?" Shizuo asked, confusion written all over his face.

Izaya shrugged. "I know your brain is primitive, but try using it sometimes, and if you can't figure out, then ask him yourself."

"You're such a bas―" He didn't get to finish though because he caught sight of Celty speeding down the street with what appeared to be the full police force on her tail. Beside him, Izaya started laughing hysterically. "What's so funny?" he hissed. Regardless of what had happened, he still cared about Celty and it bothered him that Izaya would laugh at her misfortune.

"Ah... just something," Izaya replied, smirking nastily. It looked like Iwasaki finally had a talk with Kuzuhara Kinnosuke. He'd been certain that once the man found out that Celty, his prey, had dared to step inside a police station, the man would stop at nothing from capturing her, which translated into fear and stress for the Dullahan. He didn't feel sorry that his actions had led to such a thing. After all, Celty was long overdue for punishment. He'd only used her fear of the police against her, and compared to what he could've done to her, this was nothing more than an innocent joke. Don't get caught, he thought, looking amused, as he stared off into the distance. Without as much as a wave of his hand, he turned left and headed for the train station, leaving a confused Shizuo behind. Perhaps he'd finally succeed in getting some sleep now that he knew what the note had really been about. Relief flooded his being at the thought and he couldn't help but smirk. Stupid fujoshi, I hope you've learned your lesson.

Chapter 51: Area 51

Unwelcomed visitors were not something Shizuo was looking forward to seeing again when finally getting home after such an eventful day, but he was too tired to care that he would have to sleep on the couch instead of his bed. After the insanity that had been the whole Karisawa thing, he hoped that he wouldn't have to see Izaya again for a very long time. Izaya's mere presence always augmented his feelings of guilt, and no matter how many times he helped or protected the flea, or simply did not bash the bastard's head into the nearest wall like he wanted to half the time, he would still never be able to redeem himself. Without meaning to, his eyes drifted lower to his hands when he recalled just how light the flea had been, but he immediately shoved them into his pockets in an attempt to forget about it. He'd realized a long time ago that he himself was responsible for what went down that night, but undoing things of the past was not within his power, so all he could do now was allow Izaya to metaphorically punch, kick and scratch at him until the man would finally be satisfied.

"Welcome back," Kasuka greeted as expected when Shizuo opened the door and walked into the apartment, but a feeling of uneasiness rose within Shizuo the moment the sound of his brother's voice reached his ears. The tone was much colder than usual and that icy look in those brown eyes nearly sent a shiver up his spine. He recognized the stare; it was the same one Kasuka would give him whenever he did something wrong, although he couldn't even begin to guess how he'd screwed up this time around.

"What?" he snapped without thinking, immediately regretting using such a harsh tone when he saw the way in which Ruri flinched the moment he'd opened his stupid mouth. "You know what?" he then continued as he glared at Kasuka. "How about the two of us talk somewhere more private?" He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he marched towards his little brother, grabbed him by the arm and then pulled him inside the bedroom before slamming the door behind him. "What's your problem?"

Kasuka's already half-closed eyes narrowed further as he fixed his foolish brother with what could only be described as a rather angry stare. "After everything that's happened, you still follow Izaya around."

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Shizuo folded his arms in front of his chest and returned the cold stare thrown his way. "I didn't follow him around. We had something to take care of and it was taken care of. The end."

Kasuka shook his head in disappointment. After keeping silent for so long, he decided it was about time he shared his thoughts on the matter. "You know, nii-san, at first I thought it was adorable how in denial you were about Orihara Izaya, but now it's just sad. Of course, that was before the whole forcing yourself on him thing."

The erroneous assumption infuriated Shizuo, so the words spilled out of his mouth before he even knew he'd spoken them. "The hell you talking about? I'm not in denial about anything!" he roared and took a step forward. As expected, Kasuka didn't even flinch, and that indifferent attitude reminded Shizuo that his brother was not someone he could intimidate; not that he would ever want to intimidate Kasuka.

"You're in denial about your feelings for Izaya," Kasuka stated as though it was an irrefutable fact. It wasn't very often that he got angry, but he couldn't deny that he'd been feeling his blood simmer ever since he saw Shizuo walk out of the apartment with Izaya.

As though he'd just been slapped in the face with those words, Shizuo took a step backwards. Kasuka's opinion regarding his so-called obsession with Izaya was something he'd heard before, but it still shocked him to hear his little brother insinuate that there was something more besides pure hatred going on between the two of them. Did his little brother really think that he'd done what he'd done because he liked the flea? "Are you insane?" he asked, disbelief marring his words as he took yet another step backwards.

"What else am I supposed to think? The second you see Izaya, you run after him, and even though you claim to hate him, you had no problem with―" Luckily, he managed to stop himself in time. The thought alone made him uncomfortable and the sudden surge of a murderous aura coming from Shizuo served as a warning to not go there. He was nowhere near done though. "Even now, after everything that happened, instead of staying away from him you chase him around like a lost puppy the second he comes anywhere near you." Judging by the blond's expression, it looked like he'd struck a nerve, but that expression soon hardened and before he could react, Shizuo grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. All the air inside his lungs rushed out at the impact and he found himself struggling to breathe while his brother's hand was tightly wrapped around his neck. Fortunately, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could've been considering he'd just pissed off Heiwajima Shizuo. Even though the hit had been quite hard, he wasn't hurt.

"Coward! The only one here who's in denial is you!" Shizuo roared like a crazed beast, but he came back to his senses and relinquished his hold on the easily breakable neck when he felt Kasuka's warm hand tighten around his wrist. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he'd gone too far, but he was finding it hard to control himself when all Kasuka did was irritate him with erroneous assumptions about him and Izaya, as well as keeping secrets from him. Despite all that, he was not so far gone as to hurt his little brother more than he already had after losing the hold he had on the rage boiling within, but he still grabbed a fistful of black hair to hold him there when it looked like Kasuka might walk away. "You don't get to run away before you hear what I have to say!" His remark was met with silence, so he leaned in closer until their noses were almost touching; this way, he could stare directly into those seemingly emotionless eyes. "You keep saying that I like Izaya because you can't accept the fact that your brother is a monster. It's much easier to believe that I gave in to my desires and attacked him than to face the fact that I did it out of hatred."

"That's not tr―"

"It is!" Shizuo interrupted him. "And just to show you how not in denial I am, I'll go ahead and admit that I felt some sexual attraction towards him that night. The bastard looked pretty hot with a split lip, glaring up at me in defeat with that expression of agony as I kept twisting his arm." He was certain that Kasuka would contradict him, once again tell him that it wasn't true, but his brother stood stock-still as the shocking confession sunk into his mind. "It's one thing to find someone attractive and another one entirely to like that person. I hate Izaya, but I can't deny that the little shit made me want him that night." Their destinies had been twisted beyond repair and he couldn't undo what he'd done, but sometimes he couldn't help but remember the Izaya from his dream who loved a monster even though he shouldn't have. "In another world, in another life, perhaps the two of us..."  Instead of finishing what he was about to say, he left the words hanging, and after a few more moments of silence he finally unclenched his hand from Kasuka's hair and went to sit down on the bed.

Kasuka seemed calm, considering what'd just happened, but it didn't really come as a surprise to Shizuo anymore that his brother would keep his cool even after getting slammed into a wall by someone who could break his bones with almost no effort at all. "You don't know how it feels like to want to pulverize someone with your own bare hands when all you feel is hot boiling rage rushing to your veins and your whole body burning with hatred. You drown in anger, and no matter how much you want to escape the feeling washing over you with the force of a tsunami, you're trapped under a sea of hatred until you finally let it all out through unrestrained violence. I simply... I couldn't stop myself before letting out all that resentment I had bottled up inside me over the years." His voice quivered towards the end, but he couldn't say that he was surprised, not after confessing such atrocious things to Kasuka.

Instead of running away like he wanted to, he swallowed the painful lump in his throat and continued. "You see, I had it wrong. The flea is not just an insect I could step on and then walk away as though I had done nothing wrong. The bastard is human too..." And of course Izaya was human, even though at the time Shizuo had refused to see him as one. With each vicious blow, each ruthless thrust into that bleeding body and each word slicing into the man's pride, he'd ripped away chunks of what made Orihara Izaya more than one of those humans who feared him. As he raised his head, mocha eyes met Kasuka's pitying brown ones, but it was only for a brief moment before he lowered them when the intense gaze was too much for him to bear. "If that's how you think I like someone, then..." Finally (even though he would've preferred to avoid the discussion) he'd told Kasuka exactly how he felt towards Izaya. His hands went slack after previously having been balled into fists and the next words coming out of his mouth were barely audible even in the silence of the bedroom. "That's the truth, Kasuka. It's up to you whether you accept it or not."

Fighting the impulse to run out of there, Kasuka sat down next to the miserable-looking creature that was his brother. He gently wrapped his arm around Shizuo and pulled him closer until his brother's head was resting against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, nii-san." The truth hurt so much that he could hardly breathe, but he couldn't run away and leave Shizuo alone to wallow in misery.

"Why are you doing this?" Shizuo asked in a tired voice. He'd just told his sibling that he was a monster and yet the idiot was giving him a hug.

Instead of answering, Kasuka raised his hand and placed it on top of the mop of blond hair. "Because I care about you, nii-san."

***

It was late when Izaya arrived home, which was why he was surprised to find his sisters waiting outside the door of his apartment. The twins rushed to him the moment they saw him, and before he could even ask what they were doing there, Mairu was hitting him in the chest with her much smaller fists.

"Iza-nii is a liar!" she raged as she continued to hit him.

Beside her, Kururi looked like she was one step away from crying, and even though Izaya claimed to love his sisters the same way he loved the rest of his humans, he still felt a pang in his chest after seeing their betrayed expressions. They were glaring at him like he'd just done something terrible, but he couldn't remember having done anything to make them call him a liar. Finally, when it looked like Mairu might just punch him in the face, he captured her wrists and pushed her gently into the wall so that she wouldn't hurt herself.

"What happened?" His question however was met with silence. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, your nii-san can't fix it."

"You told us that we could go on a date with Hanejima Yuuhei, but we saw on TV that he has a girlfriend!" Mairu shouted while glaring at her stupid brother; she'd always known that Izaya was no good. He had given them hope only to viciously stomp on it afterwards. "You did it on purpose, didn't you, Iza-nii? You knew he'd announce he had a girlfriend, so before that happened, you wanted to make fun of Kururi and I. I've always known you were an asshole, but this just goes to show what a horrible person you really are!"

Stunned by the accusation, Izaya simply stared at her with his mouth agape. While the purpose of the whole date thing had been to punish Kasuka, he couldn't deny that he'd enjoyed seeing his sisters happy. For once in their lives, his sisters had been grateful to him for something. Now though, their hatred seemed stronger than ever, and even though he hadn't meant for it to come to this, things had still gone wrong and there was nothing he could do or say to make them forgive him. It was much easier to let people think what they wanted instead of trying to prove them wrong. Besides, everyone always assumed the worst when it came to him and he didn't have the time nor the patience to explain himself. Instead, he simply shrugged before releasing Mairu and retrieving his key from inside his pants' pocket. "Go home," he said as he thrust the key into the lock.

"You'll pay for this, Iza-nii!" Mairu promised before she grabbed Kururi's hand and they both stormed down the hallway.

Izaya watched them until they disappeared inside the elevator before he let out a sigh and stepped inside the apartment. "That went well..."

He was tempted to check his email to see if he'd finally gotten what he was waiting for, but the exhaustion of the day's events was too much so instead of heading towards the desk, he took off his jacket, dropped it on the sofa and then went up the stairs and into the bedroom. He nearly collapsed on the bed, and even though he was tired, he couldn't fall asleep when all he could think about was Shizuo and how nice the idiot had treated him after he'd lost consciousness.

To make an already strange situation even more bizarre, Shizuo had also given him a hand with punishing Karisawa. While it was odd, it wasn't completely unexpected. By telling Shizuo all the ways in which he'd broken him, he'd made the beast experienced remorse. It was what Izaya had wanted ever since that very first time when he realized that making the monster of his nightmares regret his actions was a good way to take revenge on him, but such a thing was not enough; he wanted and he needed more. Izaya had always known that no matter how much he tortured Shizuo, his thirst for vengeance would never be completely satisfied, and as such, it only made sense that he'd have an ultimate plan for destroying the beast. He wanted his revenge to reach the grand finale so that he would finally be able to forget that someone named Heiwajima Shizuo had ever existed. All he needed now was the last piece of the puzzle, which unfortunately was also the hardest one to procure. Going through with the plan without that one piece was feasible, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

"Patience, Izaya, patience. Revenge is a meal best served cold," he reminded himself as he stared up at the ceiling of his own bedroom, but the words seemed to be lacking conviction when his ears rung with phantom screams of agony echoing through a filthy Ikebukuro alley. With bony, thin fingers, he covered his ears to block the sounds, but how could mere hands keep away a torrent of mental anguish? He'd tasted fear in the form of his own blood gushing out of his body, the memory of that coppery taste and smell anchoring him further into the nightmare that was that night. Ikebukuro's beast was fear itself, so no matter how nice Shizuo behaved or how many times he would say sorry or save him, it would never dissipate that terror deeply anchored into Izaya's very soul. He'd felt fear and shame, and as such, nothing could ever soothe his wounded pride.

"Shinra..." he murmured in a wounded voice as he lowered his quivering hands. If it hadn't been for Shinra, he would've been dead, and without him in his life, Izaya had no one. He'd tried doing something nice for his sisters and he'd gotten burned while the stupid beast had a loving freak of a brother who would defend him no matter what he did. He could almost taste the bitterness on his tongue, especially when deep down inside he was coveting for a similar relationship to what Shizuo had with Kasuka. He'd hoped for something like that from Shinra, but after what had happened, it was impossible. Besides, how could Orihara Izaya ever forgive someone who had tried to murder him? And wasn't it stupid how even though he despised Shizuo, his thoughts would always fly back to him? Why was it that the stupid beast had never listened to him before? Why didn't Shizuo play the parts Izaya had wanted him to play? "You always do the opposite of what I expect from you." Though flat, his voice could not fully conceal the negative sentiments he held towards the man, and since he could no longer sleep when his head was filled with murderous thoughts, he stood up and went downstairs.

"I really do hate you, Shizu-chan," he murmured as he sat down in his desk chair and opened the laptop. "If only you would just... disappear." Frowning, he clicked the link to the email he was expecting, but he ended up letting out a noise of frustration when he didn't find what he was looking for. "Soon, Shizu-chan, soon. That's a promise."

Now feeling thoroughly irritated, he opened one of the drawers and pulled out a cigarette pack and a lighter. He dreaded the idea of getting nauseous whenever Shizuo smoked in his presence, so he lit up cigarettes whenever he found the mental strength to do it in an attempt to overcome his trauma. So what if Shizuo had burned him with one? There wasn't even a scar left and the smell had never really bothered him before to the point that he'd feel faint, so he simply had to remember what it was like to not associate the tobacco smell with the rape. He glowered at the burning cigarette between his fingers before he turned to face the view outside his window. The smoke coiled around his thin frame like a snake threatening to choke him within its deadly embrace, but before the cigarette could touch upon dry lips, he lowered his hand and placed it back on the armrest. Smoking was not something he'd ever envisioned himself doing, but temporarily poisoning himself with such a disgusting vice was a necessary step towards recovery.

As though he didn't already have enough on his plate, he would now also have to deal with the consequences of Karisawa posting those fanfics online. Oh, he had no doubts that the fujoshi would take them down, but that didn't necessarily mean that the people who had seen them would automatically stop talking about them or whatever they thought was going on between him and Shizuo. Those people would never know how badly it hurt to read that disgusting piece of 'literature' and how different the real thing had been from their sickening fantasies. For that, Karisawa deserved a much worse fate than what he'd already bestowed upon her, but no matter how much he wanted to watch that annoying light in her eyes extinguish while he choked the life out of her, he would never take it that far. There was a limit to how much of a villain even he was.

Old him would've most likely laughed it off with a shrug or perhaps even used it to piss Shizuo off, but the current him was too damaged to not be affected by it. The fingers of his left hand dug into the chair's armrest as though he was anchoring himself there so that he wouldn't go after Karisawa, but at least he had the consolation of having made the fujoshi cry tears of blood over her burned manga. A dark chuckle slipped past his lips as he reveled in the memory of how he'd punished the fujoshi, but the chuckle turned into a hiss a few moments later when his fingers got burned by the cigarette he'd forgotten to snuff out. He nearly jolted out his desk chair, that burning sensation on his skin reminding him of a similar cigarette being pushed against his neck. While fighting the impulse to retch, he bent down, picked up the half-burned cigarette and crushed it into the ashtray he'd bought specially for this; whatever this thing was that he was trying to do. The tobacco smell however was bothering him a lot more after feeling the scorching heat on his fingers, so he got up and hurried away from his desk and up the stairs where he would once again try to get some much needed rest.

***

"Nonononono," Shinra kept murmuring whilst his eyes were glued to the TV screen revealing his beloved Dullahan being chased by the police. The footage showed her for only a brief moment as she was speeding down the street, but Shinra immediately recognized the black rider as being none other than Celty. It wasn't the first time the Dullahan was being targeted by the police, but it never before looked like the entire Ikebukuro police force was after her. He, better than anyone, knew that Celty could take care of herself, but that didn't stop him from wishing there was a way to help her. She was strong, but her fear of the men in uniform was nearly as bad as her phobia of aliens, so of course she had to be terrified by all those officers trying to get their hands on the mysterious, black rider.

"Celty, my darling, I'm sorry for being so useless!" he cried out as he ran to the TV and dropped to his knees. "Your future husband is only a powerless human who can't even save the love of his life!" Her image appeared for merely a second on the screen again and he found himself hugging the TV and bursting into tears as feelings of helplessness overwhelmed him. He wouldn't even be surprised if after this she would end up suffering from policophobia. With tears running down his cheeks, he continued to cling to the TV until the reporter announced the ending of whatever show she was hosting. The urge to go look for her made him jump to his feet, but he pushed that thought aside mere moments later when he realized how pointless such an endeavor would be. Instead, he proceeded to pace the living room (no different than a lion trapped inside a cage) while he waited for Celty to lose the police and find her way home like she always did.

About half an hour later of worrying and trenching the living room, Shinra thought he heard a sound outside the door. He nearly stumbled as he ran to open it, but instead of being blessed with the sight of his beautiful Celty, what he encountered in return was a very tall and very thin man. "Is there something you―" The intruder charged at him and Shinra tried to push him away, but his head ended up getting slammed into the wall and a hand wrapped so tightly around his neck that he could no longer breathe. He immediately reached for the scalpel inside the pocket of his lab coat and tried slashing at the man, but the intruder caught his wrist and twisted it until Shinra lost his grip on the weapon. The thing clattered when it hit the floor and Shinra watched in panic as it was kicked far away from him.

His throat burned with how hard he was being choked, so he wasn't surprised to see black spots staining his vision the more the hand tightened around his windpipe. He didn't even have enough strength in his still working arm to shove the other away, so when the man punched him again, he nearly blacked out from how hard he'd been hit while his previously still intact glasses broke and fell off his face and down on the floor. He felt the sting of a cut on his cheek from the broken glass, but the pain was insignificant when compared to the horrible pounding inside his head and the painful throbbing in his neck. The walls around him spun and the brutish grip―now on his broken arm instead of around his throat―made him fall down on his knees. A bony hand was buried in his hair and his head was pulled backwards until their eyes met and he saw the sadistic smile plastered over the unknown visage and those sharp teeth reminding him so much of a wild animal. "Who a-are you?" he hissed in both pain and anger. It was only after he caught sight of the blood smudge on the wall out of the corner of his eye that he realized his head was bleeding.

"Someone who'll make you scream," the man stated. His smirk grew crueler when his prey's eyes widened in terror, but it wasn't enough―it was never enough―so he raised a fist and repeatedly slammed it into his punching bag's face, all the while enjoying the sounds of pain while warm blood covered his hand. If he couldn't have Ruri, then this guy would have to do in the meantime.

The coppery taste of his own blood almost made Shinra gag, each punch impacting his face spilling more of the crimson liquid down his chin and onto his clothes and floor. He tried to gather his scattered thoughts so that he could figure out a way out of the situation, but even those fled momentarily when the man once again savagely slammed his head into the wall behind him. As he fought to recover from the hit he'd just received, Shinra could've sworn he heard and felt his brain rattle, and even with the blinding pain threatening to send him into unconsciousness, the doctor in him struggled to file his injuries. The fear of another blow to the head sent shivers down his spine and he couldn't deny that he felt relief when he was grabbed by the arm and hauled to his feet by this monster of a man who seemed to be deriving pleasure out of beating him to a bloody pulp. "Why a...argh...are you d-doing this?" he inquired in a weak, shaky voice as his knees nearly buckled while he was being dragged towards the living room.

"Because I can," the man answered, laughing maliciously.

After so many hits to the head, and with the walls still spinning around him, his weak attempts at wrenching his arm out of the man's hold were nothing more than laughable. A punch to the stomach came next and all he knew after that was pain as that sadist of a man he'd never seen before slammed his forearm against the doorway and then pushed until Shinra felt his radius and the ulna break under the force, bones tearing through muscles and puncturing skin. He screeched, but the sounds were muffled by the hand covering his mouth while the man kept him pinned between his body and the wall. Only after he'd stopped screaming was his broken arm finally released, but the sudden movement as the gravity pulled it downwards made him shriek all over again.

"Keep your mouth shut. As much as I'd love to hear you scream, I don't want uninvited guests bursting through the door."

One eye was nearly closed shut after the many punches he'd received, but he still glared at the man with all the hatred he could muster. Unfortunately, a murderous glare couldn't kill another person or get Shinra out of the situation he found himself in, so when the man peeled him off the wall and shoved him into the living room he stumbled backwards and fell on his behind. He couldn't see the bones sticking out through his lab coat's material, but there was blood on the sleeve and even though he was a doctor who was used to seeing injuries, it felt as though he was about to pass out. At that point, he didn't think it could get any worse, but the man proved him wrong by pouncing on him like a beast and covering his mouth with one hand while hooking his other arm under his knee and jerking really hard while twisting until the femur crunched and then broke under the strain.

Wild shudders wracked Shinra's whole body, sweat and blood mixing and dripping down the side of his face while he felt his pulse pounding through the raw mass of agony that was his leg. It seemed as though a broken femur was his breaking point, so he couldn't stop his eyes from filling with tears any more than he could stop shrieking into the man's palm for what felt like an eternity even after his broken limb was released and left to fall limply on the floor's living room. Panic like he had never felt before slammed into him when his other leg was captured and he started struggling and screaming into his torturer's palm, pleading with his eyes for him to stop.

The man laughed and laughed and laughed as he continued to twist the other leg while he watched Shinra with sadistic pleasure as the doctor struggled and shuddered in terror and pain beneath him. Those big, wide eyes filled with tears and that despair and fear he could see in them only spurred him on, so instead of breaking his leg like he'd done with the first one, he twisted and eased his grip a few times, each time seeing the panic in those dark grey eyes grow and grow until Shinra was frantic with the imminent pain he knew he would soon experience.

"You have one chance. One. Where is Ruri?" he asked and pulled back his hand so that the doctor could answer.

Finally, the reason he'd been beaten and tortured was revealed, but Shinra couldn't give him an answer even if he wanted. If Ruri wasn't at Kasuka's place then he didn't know where she could be. "Plea...ahh...se s-stop," he begged with tears in his eyes. "I d-don't... know. I don't. No i-ide...a, p-plea... ahhhhh!!" His pleas turned into shrieks and with a sudden and powerful jerk while twisting his leg, the bone finally gave away under the sadist's cruel hand.

The need to hear those screams overwhelmed him, so the torturer thoroughly enjoyed the shrills of agony for a few moments before slamming his elbow into the doctor's ribs to break a few of those too. He would've loved to expand on his torture, but he didn't want to get caught so he got up and headed towards the door and out of the apartment, leaving the doctor for dead on the floor.

Shinra's eyes were wide, his face red and his mouth gaping in a desperate attempt to gulp in air that wouldn’t come. The more effort he put into it, the worse everything hurt and the more he chocked and whimpered and whined with each tiny movement his broken body made. All he felt was pain, pain and more pain throughout his entire body, but he was alone and bleeding on the floor with no one to help him while he choked and gurgled on his blood and his limbs lay uselessly on the floor. They burned and pulsed and throbbed, the serrated edges of the broken bones mercilessly cutting into muscles and skin the more he twitched and jerked. Unconsciousness pulled at him with everything it had, but he feared he might not wake up if he gave into it, so instead he bit into his lip and fought to stay awake even if it hurt more than anything he'd ever experienced before in his life.

And why was it that he was thinking of Izaya in such moments and about how much worse it must have been for the Informant to be beaten, tortured and raped by a real monster? Stop it, stop it, stopitstopitstopit! What he needed to do was try to breath and not die on the floor of his and Celty's apartment. He hoped that when she finally arrived home, he would be awake to tell her that he was not fine and that everything would be all right.

***

Celty was still trembling by the time she reached the apartment building. Her whole day had been a nightmare and all she wanted to do was run up to Shinra and cuddle in his― No, not that! She was still mad at him, but she knew deep down inside that she would eventually forgive him, though she was not ready to do so yet. Still, the safety of their home sounded nice, and even if it wouldn't be Shinra's arms, his presence as they both watched TV sounded like something she sorely needed after being chased by the police throughout the entire city. Her limbs shook whenever flashbacks of her 'adventure' slammed into her mind, but the tremors turned into violent trembling when she saw the bloody door handle.

Please let him be safe, please let him be safe, she prayed before she pressed it and stepped inside, a feeling of nausea hitting her hard when she saw the blood smudge on the wall and some more of it on the floor. She ran into the living room, now in full panic over Shinra being hurt, but what she found was much worse than she had imagined. For a moment, she just stood there, frozen in a panic, but Shinra's low whine went through her like electricity and she dropped to her knees next to Shinra. His face was swollen, with one eye closed shut and blood cascading down his nose. As bad as it looked, it wasn't what worried her. Even without pulling back the coat's sleeve, she could see that his right arm was broken. It was twisted at an unnatural angle, and even though she had an idea what to do, she couldn't get her body to move when the one lying broken on the floor was Shinra and not someone she didn't know or cared about.

"C-Cel...t-ty..."

She immediately pulled out the PDA to tell him not to speak and to save his strength, but his next words tore her heart to pieces and then crushed them to dusk.

"'m f-fii...ne..." Hurts.

With the speed of light, she typed her reply and pushed the PDA in front of his face. [You're not fine!] There were many questions she wanted to ask, like who had done this and what were his exact injuries, which Shinra most likely knew about, but with him bleeding she didn't want to waste any more time than she already had. She pulled back the PDA and typed a message before pulling out Shinra's phone from inside the pocket of his lab coat, dialing the number for emergencies and then using the automatic voice function to ask for an ambulance to be sent to their address.

In her desire to comfort him, she raised his back a little with the purpose of placing his head in her lap, but that somehow jolted his broken arm and he couldn't suppress a yelp from slipping past his lips. She nearly jumped back, but the fear of causing him further damage forced her to stay in place. It hurt to see him in pain and it hurt to know that she hadn't been there to protect him. The idiot was trying to smile even though he was obviously suffering, and the only thing she could do was gently stroke his head while they waited for the ambulance.

I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you...

Chapter 52: From the Inside

With the silence of the night now shattered by a ringtone and a pitiful whimper, a vestige of yet another nightmare, one with broken bones, agonizing thrusts and bleeding orifices, a quivering hand reached for the phone on the nightstand, but the device ended up slipping through clammy fingers a couple of times before Izaya finally managed to pick it up. Just a nightmare, he kept telling himself as he fought to calm down enough to be able to read the message, but the task was proving to be difficult when his sight was blurred by tears and his eyes burned more than they had before he'd fallen asleep; not to mention that the screen was too bright to look at within the smothering darkness of the bedroom. The whole thing was making his already terrible headache worse, but at least he was no longer dreaming of a cruel beast with yellow eyes and inhuman strength.

The problem now was that he had a bad feeling because the few people who had this number didn't usually call in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency. Letting out a sound of irritation, he cracked one eye open and attempted to read it again, but when that didn't seem to work either, he placed the phone on the bed and proceeded to rub his eyes, at the same time wiping away those pesky tears he refused to acknowledge ever having shed. The phone's screen still seemed too bright once he picked it up again, but at least this time it looked like he could read the text. The message was from Celty, and since she'd never bothered him before at such odd hours, it could only mean that something was wrong. As it turns out, he'd been right.

[Shinra is in the hospital. Someone broke into our apartment and nearly beat him to death. I thought you might want to know.]

"Someone nearly... beat him to death," Izaya uttered, the shock of the news hitting him so hard that he lost the grip on the phone and the device slipped between bony fingers and fell on the bed. He almost felt dizzy as the information sunk into his brain, and he couldn't understand for the life of him why anyone would ever want to hurt that big idiot, especially when Shinra's ever cheerful mood and bubbling personality made him a likable character even though the man could be quite annoying at times because of his silly antics.

The right hand, the one which had previous been holding the phone, briefly hovered above his heart before fingers buried into his chest, digging deeper into the skin as the pain intensified. The petty, wouldn't-ever-let-it-go part of Orihara Izaya tried to remind him that he shouldn't care about what happened to the doctor, but every fiber of his being felt sick knowing that his friend―yes, his only friend―had nearly been beaten to death.

After having been viciously assaulted himself, he knew all too well what it meant to be a victim, especially the pain that came with it as well as the terror of being unable to defend himself. Months had passed since his attack and yet he could still remember that utter coldness he felt when realization dawned upon him and he understood the implications of what Shizuo was planning to do, as well as the feeling of ice sloshing through his veins and the terror of the unavoidable before finally being thrown into a world of torment and despair. No matter how evil he might've acted on some occasions, there was no part of him that wanted the doctor to get hurt in any way, regardless of what had occurred between them. The fingers on his chest kept on pressing until he finally felt an intense pain on top of the one throbbing deep within and he looked at his hand in surprise for a few moments before finally pulling it away.

I have to see him, he decided, and it was the only thought occupying his mind as he got up on wobbly legs and went to change. The light nearly blinded him when he turned it on and he was still feeling slightly dizzy after going so many days without food and sleep, but the need to see Shinra pushed him forward with all its might because the two of them shared a strong bond, born out of the kindness Shinra showed him when everyone else had pushed him away. Shinra had been there for him when the Informant no one cared about was bleeding to death―well, there was Kasuka too, but Izaya didn't really want to think about the freak right at that moment―but unlike everyone else, Shinra had chosen him over Shizuo.

He was in such a hurry to go see the foolish doctor that he nearly stumbled and fell down the stairs, but his parkour skills and the many years of practice he had at avoiding flying objects thrown by a certain beast with inhuman strength helped him recover his balance and avoid getting his neck broken. It wouldn't have been a pretty sight, but he had a feeling that Namie would've enjoy it nonetheless. The ornery woman still came to work―except for those times when he'd left her a message telling her not to show up at the office―but she was ignoring him ever since the 'incident' involving a kiss. That however was an issue for another time. Izaya had more important things to worry about than to waste his time thinking about a certain secretary with a brother complex who couldn't take a joke.

It was during times such as these when he regretted having moved to Shinjuku, especially since it was always hard to find a train or a subway to take him to Ikebukuro at such odd hours, but at least he always had the option of calling a cab, which was what he did before he even stepped out of his apartment. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long for one to arrive, but it still felt like an eternity had passed before the car finally stopped in front of his apartment building and he hopped in it. He made sure to pay the man a little extra so that he would drive faster, but the journey still seemed too long and Izaya's heart didn't stop ratcheting inside his chest no matter how hard he tried to calm down.

He was terrified of what he'd find when he got there, because if Shinra had been nearly beaten to death, then that frail-looking body had to have received considerable damage. As the bubbling idiot had once jokingly told him, he was a lover, not a fighter, so Izaya doubted that the doctor even stood a chance against his attacker; or attackers, in case there had been more than one. The way he saw it, Shinra had been either beaten for information or for the sheer pleasure of inflicting damage, which in both cases most likely meant torture. At that point, Izaya could only hope that Shinra got away with only a few broken bones.

By the time the car stopped in front of the hospital, Izaya was feeling faint after having imagined the too many ways in which Shinra could've been tortured, and he absentmindedly handed the driver a few more bills before he stepped out of the car and headed towards the entrance. He stopped by the reception to get information on where he could find Shinra, after which he headed straight for the elevator. He found Celty waiting outside the operating room, trenching the hallway and looking like she was about to either murder someone or crumple to the floor and burst into tears even though she didn't have a head.

"Hey, Celty," he greeted her when it didn't look like she had noticed him even though he was standing right beside her. She jerked in surprised when she heard his voice and she immediately pulled out her PDA and started typing.

[You came.]

"Mhm. How is he?"

[I don't know. They haven't told me anything yet.]

Izaya's eyes drifted over to the door and he stared at it for a few moments before his attention went back to Celty who looked more miserable than he had ever seen her before. It was almost hard to believe that this creature was a Dullahan, but Izaya knew the world to be a strange place, so a headless rider worrying over a human suddenly didn't seem as surprising anymore. "Is it bad?" he dared to ask even though he dreaded the answer.

Upon hearing the question, Celty's shoulders drooped further and it took everything in her power to not break down into sobbing. She suddenly felt more drained than she'd felt ever since she woke up without a head and hardly any memories of her past, but she couldn't afford to be weak when she had to stay strong for Shinra's sake. The idea of putting those horrible injuries into written words hurt more than she had ever imagined, but Izaya was there, worrying about Shinra, and she had to tell the man what he wanted to know. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard for a long time before she finally started pressing the keys, but each character felt like a knife to the heart and it took her a while to even get as much down.

[The paramedics were saying that a couple of his ribs and both his legs have been broken. And also...]

Izaya held his breathe as he waited for her to continue and he found himself placing a comforting hand on her shoulder when he noticed that she was trembling so badly that she couldn't even finish what she was trying to type.

[His forearm...] she typed and showed the PDA to Izaya before pulling back her hand and continuing. Her fingers were badly quivering and she could hardly press the keys, but she kept on trying until the horror of what had been done to Shinra appeared on the screen in the form of a few words.

[The broken bones pierced the skin.]

The words tore through Izaya's heart similarly to how the sharp bones had sliced through the muscles and the skin of Shinra's arm, and no matter how hard he tried to take his eyes off that screen, he was transfixed by the seemingly innocent looking characters combined in such a way that made them convey a most painful message. He could hardly breathe with how much it hurt, so he was thankful to Celty when she pulled back the PDA and those accursed words were out of his face even if they could never leave his mind.

Finally, he pulled back his hand and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket where he wrapped thin fingers around the switchblade and then tightened his hold, knuckles turning white with how hard he was squeezing it. With a compound fracture, Shinra must've screamed a lot, and Izaya had to fight the impulse to cover his ears at the mere thought of it. "Was he conscious when you found him?" he asked and then continued when Celty nodded. "Did he tell you who did it?"

[Right before he passed out he told me that it was someone looking for Hijiribe Ruri.]

Izaya had been worried that the attack might've had something to do with him ever since he read the message back at the apartment, so he couldn't have been more grateful to Celty for lifting that heavy weight off his shoulders. He saw her recline against the wall then, helmet tipped downwards as she slowly typed a new message.

[It's all my fault. I should've been there for him.]

"It's not your fault," Izaya tried, but her shoulders began to shake as though she was crying and he was at a loss about what to do next.

[If only I had escaped the police sooner...]

The message hit him with the strength of a vending machine sending him flying through the air and then crushing him under its weight. It wasn't Celty's fault that she hadn't been home, but his, and as the guilt flooded every cell in his body, he turned around on shaky legs and rushed to the bathroom. A feeling of self-loathing like he hadn't felt in a long time overcame his senses and he gripped the sink tighter while he fought the nausea threatening to make him lose the little amount of food he had eaten at the restaurant while 'dining' with Shizuo.

Celty hadn't been home to protect Shinra because she was being chased by Kinnosuke Kuzuhara and his men across town, so Shinra lying in a hospital bed was partly Izaya's fault because of his stupid game of revenge against Celty. His eyes caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and the disgust he felt for the person looking back at him made him raise his fist and crash it into it with all of his strength. The pain flared from his fist like wildfire, but he welcomed it because he truly believed that he deserved it. As expected, the mirror cracked upon impact and a few droplets of blood spattered on its surface from the split and sliced the skin of his knuckles. "I screwed up," he repeatedly murmured while grinding his teeth so hard that his jaw ached, until his strength finally left him and he found himself gripping the edge of the sink.

His previously unfocused eyes settled on the image in front of him again and that's when he finally saw it in all its shameful glory, the broken thing staring back at him from the bloody surface of the cracked mirror. His red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes widened further, but it felt as though they'd been closed this whole time and that only now he was once again seeing the world around him. Past the unshed tears―which caused it to appear slightly blurred―lay the image reflected outside the cracks, shattered into as many pieces as his once God-like mind. He realized then, as he stared at the image, that what the beast had truly broken that night were the walls keeping his emotions under near-perfect control.

Over the years, people have often accused him of being a psychopath or a sociopath (he himself had strengthened those beliefs on several occasions when it suited him) but the truth was that he wasn't either of those. Underneath the god was a painfully human Orihara Izaya who Heiwajima Shizuo had succeeded in dragging to the surface. The monster had hauled that part of himself from deep within where Izaya had locked it and it was that Izaya who was going after Shizuo like a bloodthirsty animal instead of putting himself back together and using his head instead of being driven by the pain and hatred he constantly drowned into. He had not only lost his place as the chess master, but he was acting like one of those foolish pieces he'd so often looked down upon from his high place amongst gods.

And he felt shame. Not shame born out of what had been done to him, but shame at having allowed himself to crash so violently. With the fall came not only broken bones, torn muscles and bleeding wounds, but also a shattered to pieces mind that could not cope with the events of that fateful night. The shock had been so fierce that even though he was finally seeing things with crystal clarity, those human emotions that Shizuo had unleashed were still rampaging his mind. They were like tornadoes tearing apart everything in their path and leaving things in shambles, and for someone like him―a genius―a ruined mind was the worst thing that could've ever happened.

So it made sense that if the shattered him was the reflection in the mirror, then the God him was the unbroken mirror. By picking up the pieces and putting them back together he could never restore it to its previous state. The only way to achieve a similar result would be to completely destroy the thing and then replace it with a new one. The painful truth was that the old Orihara Izaya could no longer be put back together, not after what he'd suffered at the beast's hands, but perhaps he could build himself into something if not better, then at least closer to the original Izaya than this pathetic thing looking back at him with those too human eyes.

"You're done," he told his reflection before he tore his eyes away from it and washed the blood off his hands. He then walked out of the bathroom and hurried back to Celty, but she was no longer there and it looked like the doctors working on Shinra were done because they were leaving the room outside which Celty had been previously waiting.

"Excuse me, but do you happen to know where the patient you were operating on earlier has been moved?" he asked one of the two doctors passing him by.

"Room 303," the man said and then went on his way after Izaya thanked him.

Instead of taking the elevator, he rushed to the stairs and went up two floors, easily finding the room and bursting inside before the thought of knocking even passed through his mind. Celty turned to him, looking startled, but she seemed to calm down a bit when she saw who it was. Izaya's eyes then reluctantly traveled over to Shinra's form and he nearly felt sick all over again when he saw how terrible he looked. One eye was swollen and closed shut while the rest of Shinra's face was covered in bruises. All of the doctor's limbs were in casts and there were also bandages around his head. If anything, it looked like Shinra had been hit by a truck.

[I'm sorry for disappearing like that,] she typed and raised the device in front of Izaya's face, at the same time blocking his view of Shinra. The man looked pale and like he was about to either pass out or throw up and Celty was starting to seriously worry about him. He looked much worse than the last time she'd seen him back at the police station and it was obvious that being away from Shinra, the only person who seemed to somewhat care about him, was not doing him any good. When it still didn't look like she was getting his attention, she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed until startled red eyes turned her way and he blinked a few times before finally settling on her, but it was only after she moved the PDA in his line of view that he seemed to have come back from wherever his mind had been wandering.

"It's okay," he told her in a low voice before he turned his attention back to Shinra and he made his way towards the hospital bed. Now that he was closer he could better see the damage done to the doctor, and the ache in his chest flared up as his eyes reluctantly roamed over the unconscious form. "What did the doctor say?" he asked without even turning to Celty.

Izaya seemed transfixed by Shinra's injuries, so she used the automatic voice function to answer his question.

["Spiral femur fracture on both his legs, compound fracture of the radius and ulna of his right arm, two broken ribs and one fractured, as well as a linear skull fracture."]

Red eyes shifted over to Shinra's left arm and stayed there. It was the arm Shizuo had broken, and even though Izaya didn't know the exact details, he was almost glad that it happened because it would've been much worse if the guy who attacked Shinra would've decided to break that one as well. Perhaps that sicko was someone who didn't like to play with something that was already damaged. Rage and disgust at his own train of thought nearly blinded him and he vowed right then to find the man who had dared touch Shinra and make him pay.

["You look like you could use a cup of coffee,"] he heard the automatic voice say before the door opened and then closed behind Celty.

He nearly collapsed in the chair next to the bed the second she was gone, and he sat like that for a few moments before he carefully took Shinra's left hand into his own and gently squeezed it. It was cold and pale, just like the rest of the battered body wherever the skin was not covered in bruises, bandages or the casts. The man could've died just like that and Izaya realized that he'd never before seen Shinra look so mortal. It was an unnerving thought which he tried to push to the back of his mind, but the ephemeral nature of the human existence refused to give him peace and he ended up shuddering despite himself.

Ironically enough, that same grim thought helped Izaya understand why Shinra had changed so much after that accursed day. They didn't like to call each other friends, not out loud anyway, but they both knew they cared about each other in some way. Izaya had always found the doctor to be quite fascinating―so much that he didn't even see him as one of his humans―while Shinra, even though he was an idiot who had only taken a knife for him in order to impress Celty, had ended up making his first real connection with another human being through that. Their 'friendship' was born out of selfishness or curiosity more than anything else, but the fact still remained that the two of them were accustomed to each other's company and the thought of one of them dying was not something he even wished to entertain.

Some of the hatred Shinra felt towards Shizuo was not because of what the monster had done to Izaya, but because through his actions, the beast had destroyed his somewhat peaceful life. Anyone else would've been hurt by such a realization, but Izaya smiled and squeezed the limp hand tighter. The two of them had the most messed up friendship in the world and Izaya couldn't help but let out a laugh as he got up and leaned over the sleeping form. "I'll make sure he pays for hurting my doctor," he whispered into Shinra's ear before he straightened his back and turned on his heels, only now noticing that Celty was watching him from the entrance. A malicious smirk spread across his face and he walked over to the frozen Dullahan who was just standing there looking confused. "I have to go, but I'll take the cup if you don't mind."

Celty handed it to him and Izaya thanked her before he went on his way. She watched him as he disappeared down the hallway, a sort of uneasiness settling in her stomach and refusing to leave after seeing the earlier scene and the disturbing smirk on the Informant's face. Whether he appeared to be calm, angry or cheerful, Orihara Izaya was a dangerous man, but the way he looked earlier reminded her more of the old Izaya who was less angry and more calculated. After closing the door behind her and sitting down on the chair next to the bed, she pulled out the PDA to send a message.

Outside the hospital, Izaya heard his phone go off. He fished it from inside the pocket of his jacket and read the message.

[Let me know when you find him.]

A dark chuckle slipped past his lips and he shoved the device back into his pocket, but he heard someone call his name before he could cross the street and he turned around, cursing under his breathe before he put on the same smile he used whenever he had to deal with clients or business partners. "Shiki-san, it's been a while."

"Indeed, it has," the man said before he took a drag from the cigarette, "and it just so happens that I need your services again."

Izaya's eyes briefly wandered to the cigarette and he was glad that his little sessions seemed to be paying off because he no longer felt the urge to throw up whenever someone smoked in his presence, although he was still feeling slightly dizzy. "Ah, I'm sorry, but I'm a bit busy at the moment and―"

"Yamashita Rikuto, twenty-seven years old, now a former member of the Awakusu-kai. Call me when you find him."

Shiki was obviously in a bad mood, and now that Izaya was seeing things more clearly, he understood that crossing the man was not a good idea, especially when it looked like the Awakusu-kai Executive was one step away from murdering someone. That alone seemed interesting enough and Izaya decided to look into it if only out of curiosity. Still, he had more important things to worry about, so he filed the name he'd been given under -New Cases- before he took a right turn and headed towards a specific destination, sipping on his coffee from time to time and hoping that he could handle what he was about to do.

He ended up stopping a few times on his way there and even changed the direction once and headed towards the train station, but he changed his mind and continued on his previous path because he knew that he had to go there and face his demons. He now understood that he couldn't move forward as long as he didn't come to terms with what had happened back then. That was the reason why he was back to the place where the god had been beaten by a monster and nearly killed in the process.

The closed-off alley was just as dark as he remembered. He tried to go inside, but he didn't even manage to take one step before a wave of nausea hit him and he could've sworn he felt the ground shift beneath his feet. He leaned against the building's wall, holding a hand to his mouth while he trembled like a miserable puppy forgotten outside in the rain on a cold autumn night. Very bad idea, he thought as he fought to swallow the bile threatening to climb up his throat. He stayed like that for a few minutes, fighting the impulse to wretch until he finally felt well enough to move away from the wall. He let out a broken laugh and gave the alley a haunted look before he turned around and walked away. Perhaps he was not yet ready after all.

Chapter 53: A Game of Shadows

With the resignation that he could never be put together the way he used to be prior to that night came a deep sense of calmness. The thought cut deeply and left him bleeding similarly to how he'd bleed in that alley, but at least it set him back on the right course. He could now see, with eyes wide open, how most of the things he'd done until then were pointless, though highly satisfying at the time. All those little games and words meant to hurt Shizuo had not only injured the beast but Izaya himself as well. For so many months after the incident he'd been too blinded by emotional pain and the deep hatred he felt for the blond to see past the humiliation he'd been forced to endure that rainy night when a monster killed a god. Now, more than ever, he wanted to go through with his plan, but he was lacking the key element and he couldn't do it the way he'd envisioned it without it.

His only consolation as he sat there in his desk chair, eyes drifting over the city below, was that even though he'd been broken by Shizuo, the base of his thoughts and actions was still there. His once perfectly arranged thoughts were in disarray, so trying to find order in such chaos was an impossibility, but even within his broken mind, numerous electrical impulses were still being sent back and forth between neurons and a fraction of a second was all it took for his brain to come up with a solution that could make it possible for him to kill two birds with one stone. It made sense though, because it was much easier to write the play when looking at things objectively; or as close to objectivity as he could get after a vicious beast had rampaged through his carefully constructed inner world.

If he went through with this plan, it would save him the trouble of having to deal with Mikado, Aoba and the rest of the Dollars members. He'd found out earlier while having a look at the chatroom that the person going around the city beating up people and asking about Ruri was a man called Adabashi Kisuke. People described him as being very tall but also very thin, with sharp eyes and a cruel look in his eyes. They were also calling him a sadist because he seemed to be deriving great pleasure in torturing his victims. Izaya's fingers dug deeper into the chair's armrests as the image of a broken Shinra lying in a hospital bed came to mind and he had to remind himself that he needed to keep his cool if he wanted his plan to succeed. He'd have to put himself in harm's way but it was a risk he was willing to take.

He wondered if Shinra had felt the same way, or at least something close to what he was feeling, back when the doctor found him dying in the bathtub and the man had to patch him up. Looking back at those dark few days right after the assault, he remembered Shinra's pained expression every time the man looked at him, and even though at the time Izaya hated him for looking at him like that, he was now grateful there had been someone who cared enough to worry about him. It was why he would make sure that Adabashi paid for the sin of beating up and torturing the only person in the world who was not one of Izaya's humans but above them.

He felt his blood boil again at the mere thought of what that man had done to Shinra and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in order to calm down. He repeated the process a few more times before finally turning to the laptop so that he could put his plan into action. Besides, it was the perfect time to check on the chatroom, especially when most people were still asleep since it was so early in the morning.

 

CHATROOM

 

Kanra-san has just joined the chat.

 

Kanra: Good morning! ヽ(*≧ω≦)ﾉ

Kanra: Hello?

Kanra: I guess no one's online at this hour...

Kanra: Now I'm sad because I have these wonderful news to share but no one to share them with.

Kanra: p(´⌒｀｡q)

Kanra: On second thought, perhaps I should keep quiet... because of the stalker and all that. Σ(ﾟﾛﾟ｣)｣

[Private Mode] Kenpachi: What about the stalker?

Tanaka Tarō: Good morning, Kanra-san.

Kanra: Someone's online after all~

[Private Mode] Kenpachi: What were you talking about earlier?

Tanaka Tarō: Yes. I apologize for not replying sooner; I was getting a cup of coffee.

Kanra: That's a good way to start the morning. I think I'll go make some coffee too.

Tanaka Tarō: Kanra-san, wait a second.

Kanra: Hmm?

[Private mode] Tanaka Tarō: What was that about a stalker?

[Private mode] Kanra: Forget I said anything~

[Private mode] Kenpachi: What news did you want to share?

[Private mode] Kanra: Forget I said anything~

[Private mode] Tanaka Tarō: Please, this is important.

[Private mode] Kanra: I thought I saw the police arresting a man who looked like the stalker, but on second thought, it couldn't have been him.

[Private mode] Tanaka Tarō: I see. That's too bad. Anyway, I have to go. Have a nice day!

 

Tanaka Tarō has just left the chat.

 

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Hey, still there?

[Private mode] Kanra: Yes~

[Private mode] Kenpachi: What news did you want to share?

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Hey!

[Private mode] Kenpachi: I want to know what you saw.

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Mind sharing?

[Private mode] Kanra: I can't! What if you're the stalker?

[Private mode] Kenpachi: I'm not.

[Private mode] Kenpachi: I'm just a fan of Ruri-san.

[Private mode] Kanra: Okay~! Then I guess I can tell you.

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Mhm.

[Private mode] Kanra: Yesterday, I saw Ruri-san and Yuuhei-san.

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Where did you see them?

[Private mode] Kanra: I can't say that! I don't want to be the one responsible for getting my favorite actor and singer kidnapped.

[Private mode] Kanra: Or worse! 工ｴｴｪｪ(;╹⌓╹)ｪｪｴｴ工

[Private mode] Kanra: I'm sorry, but I have to go~

[Private mode] Kenpachi: No, wait!

[Private mode] Kanra: Bye~! (￣▽￣)ノ

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Wait!

 

Kanra-san has just left the chat.

 

"That was too easy~" Izaya sang as he picked up the phone and swiveled in his desk chair a few times before stopping and smiling at the view of the city before him. It was nice to once again feel like he was in control even though he was still a long way from being the Informant he once was. No matter, he thought excitedly. He still had things to do and he couldn't afford to mule over the past when he had a monster or two to catch.

His eyes drifted over to the phone in his hand and he looked through the contacts list to find the name he was looking for. He smirked when he found it and he pressed Call before raising the phone to his ear.

"Ueda-san, I believe I may be in need of your assistance."

***

Shizuo groaned as he 'fought' to turn off the alarm. It was time for work but he was not in the mood to go, especially after the whole Karisawa thing and the fight he had with Kasuka the night before. "Shut up already!" he growled as he opened his eyes, grabbed the clock and nearly crushed it between his fingers before he finally succeeded in turning off the alarm. Cursing under his breath, he got up and rushed to the bathroom to take a shower, all the while berating himself for falling asleep on the bed after he'd told the two love birds that he would sleep on the couch. He scrubbed a hand over his face and tried not to think about how cold the water was, but it still made his mood turn sour really fast. While a hot shower would've been nice, what he really needed was to get out of there and away from Kasuka and Ruri. He doubted the stalker would dare enter his apartment, and besides, Tom needed him because they had to recover money from a gang leader that day.

"I'm coming out," he called from the hallway after he'd gotten dressed and ready for work. He didn't get an answer though, so when he stepped into the living room he found the two of them sleeping in each other's arms. By the looks of it, they had fallen asleep while watching a movie and Shizuo didn't have the heart to wake them up when they looked so adorable. Kasuka was sitting in the corner, his head resting on the couch while Ruri was cuddled in his arms. He'd always wanted Kasuka to be happy, so Shizuo was glad that his brother had finally found a woman he liked. He would've preferred to stay home and make sure that nothing happened to the two of them, but Kasuka was not a weakling and Shizuo was certain that his sibling would be able to take care of one measly stalker if it came down to it. Careful not to wake them up, he left the spare key on the coffee table as well as a note telling them he'd be back later in the afternoon before he quietly slipped out of the apartment and closed the door behind him.

He was still pretty mad at Kasuka for hiding things from him, but he hoped that after the discussion they had the night before, his brother would at least stop bugging him about how he was certain that Shizuo 'liked' or 'obsessed' over Izaya. No, he didn't like Izaya, and yes, he obsessed over the man sometimes (most of the time), but he didn't find it that strange considering how the two of them had been enemies for so many years. They despised each other and they had tried to kill each other on numerous occasions, and yet the two of them were still very much breathing. Perhaps that was the punishment for a feud that had started so foolishly on a football field on a sunny day when the two of them were still young and pretty innocent and had not yet damaged each other beyond repair; back when Izaya was still a cocky bastard who wasn't afraid of him and who didn't know what it meant to get trampled over by a beast.

Then again, it was pointless to think of the past and what could've been when everything was already messed up and Shizuo could do nothing but crawl through the rest of his life while drowning in the suffocating guilt he felt whenever those bleeding eyes flashed though his mind and he recalled the events of that night in vivid detail. Every day was just another day of feeling guilty over what he'd done to Izaya, over Kasuka getting hurt because of him and a thousand different other people who had ended up unconscious or in the hospital with broken bones because he couldn't control his anger like every other human out there.

Sighing, he ran a twitchy hand through dyed locks and crossed the street before lighting up a cigarette and inhaling some much needed smoke. He was about to shove the cigarette pack back into his pocket when his hand froze in mid-air and he raised it back up, staring at the thing like it was his first time seeing it. He smoked even though he hated the bitter taste and he couldn't remember until then how he'd started in the first place, but then it all came back to him and he couldn't help but laugh loudly in the middle of the street.

It happened on a hot spring day when he heard Izaya complain to Shinra about how much he hated the smoke. According to the flea, secondhand smoking was just as bad for one's health, and as such he refused to be anywhere near people who engaged in such unhealthy habits. By then, Shizuo was pretty desperate to get rid of the flea, so he'd ran to the first store, bought a pack and started smoking. It was unfortunate that not even the smoke Izaya claimed to hate so much could keep the flea away, but at least it made the bastard angry and that was good enough for him. "How stupid," Shizuo murmured, giving the pack one last look before thrusting it into the pocket of his pants and calling out to his former high school senpai who was patiently waiting for him.

***

It was late in the afternoon when Izaya made his way towards Shizuo apartment, humming an undecipherable song while prancing through the streets. He had a bag of fatty tuna in hand and he was excited at the prospect of getting his 'claws' on that horrible human who'd dared to hurt Shinra. That wasn't the only reason, but like everything else when it came to Shizuo, the outcome was impossible to predict. Chuckling, he pulled out the phone to check on the Dollars chatroom and he wasn't in the least surprised to find the Kenpachi guy still there and sending him a private message in which he was asking him about Ruri the second 'Kanra' logged in. "You're making this too easy for me~" he chirped. He didn't answer the message though and instead logged out. He then typed a number and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

"'the hell you want now, flea?" Shizuo barked the question, making Izaya wince and pull back the device in fear of going deaf.

"Could you please lower the volume? You're giving me a headache," Izaya whined, and he had to suppress the snigger threatening to come out when he heard the beast snort like the animal that he was.

"I'm not in the mood for your shit today, so call back never."

The call ended and Izaya blinked in surprise a couple of times before dialing again.

"Stop bother―"

"This isn't about us, so stop acting like a brute for once and hear what I have to say." There was the sound of plastic cracking and Izaya nearly burst into laughter when he realized that Shizuo was gripping the phone so tightly that the thing was coming apart in his hand. "Calm down, ne?" The immediate response was a growl, but it was luckily followed by silence. Now that he had the beast's attention, he continued. "Something happened to Shinra." Izaya could've sworn he heard Shizuo's breath hitch, but he couldn't be sure because the stupid beast wasn't supposed to care about someone who hated him.

"That's none of my business," Shizuo finally replied. "I'm hang―"

"It's got something to do with your brother's girlfriend. Interested now?"

"If you hurt either of them, I swear―"

"Don't be an idiot, Shizu-chan. The two of them getting hurt is what I'm trying to prevent. When can you meet me at your apartment?"

"I'll be there in an hour."

The call ended and Izaya gave the phone a glare instead of the brute he wanted to glare at before logging on the Dollars' chatroom and taking a seat on a bench across the street from Shizuo's apartment building.

 

CHATROOM

 

Kanra-san has just joined the chat.

 

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Hey, you still haven't answered my question.

[Private mode] Kanra: I've been busy~

[Private mode] Kanra: I'm not busy right now though. 

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Where did you see Ruri-san? Like I said, I'm a fan. I won't bother her. I just want to see for myself that she's safe.

[Private mode] Kanra: Aww, you sound like such a nice guy. Okay, I'll tell you~

[Private mode] Kenpachi: Great! Thanks.

[Private mode] Kanra: Ruri-san is staying the apartment of her boyfriend's brother. Don't even think about bothering her if you know what's good for you. Heiwajima Shizuo is known as being Ikebukuro's strongest. He should still be at work around this time, but he'll be home soon, so don't show up around there if you don't want to end up in the hospital.

 

Kenpachi-san has just left the chat.

Kanra-san has just left the chat.

 

Now that all the pieces had been set into place, all he had to do was wait. "You're not very smart, are you, Adabashi Kisuke~?" Smirking, he pocketed the phone and shifted on the bench until he found a more comfortable position. Timing was crucial, and even though there were still many unknown variables, he guessed that he could afford to eat the fatty tuna he'd bought before all hell broke loose. Giggling like a little kid, he opened the bag, picked up a piece of the delicious treat and stuffed it into his mouth. His eyes turned in his head at how heavenly it tasted, but his mind betrayed him and he remembered Shinra offering him the same thing before, back when the doctor wasn't lying in a hospital bed looking so broken. His mood quickly turned sour and he ended up sighing but still eating the rest of it simply because he needed the energy if he wanted to not pass out in the middle of whatever it was that was coming.

He threw the bag into the trash can once he was done and then waited for thirty-seven more minutes―he knew how much because he kept checking the time―before getting up when a suspicious van stopped in front of the apartment building and a few men carrying baseball bats got out and went up the stairs. "It's show time~"

***

Inside the apartment, Kasuka and Ruri were preparing dinner so that the three of them could eat together when Shizuo came back from work. They were enjoying the peace and quiet when they heard a bang on the door followed by several others. Realizing they were in danger, Kasuka immediately pushed Ruri behind him and grabbed a knife from the counter. The lock gave out soon after and a few men, followed by a tall skinny guy who appeared to be their leader and the stalker obsessed with Ruri, burst into the apartment.

Adabashi's eyes fell on Kasuka and his expression morphed into one of pure cruelty now that he had one more person to play with for daring to take away his beloved Ruri. "I had to go through a lot of trouble to find her because of you," he stated as he flexed his fingers in excitement of what he was about to do to the man. To his surprise, Hanejima Yuuhei didn't seem to be panicking at all, which was odd because most people would've already been begging to be spared. "Interesting," he mused as he pulled out a gun. "Step away from Ruri-chan," he ordered, but Kasuka shook his head and took a defensive stance.

"I'll be okay," Ruri told him as she tried to move past him, but Kasuka pushed her back.

Still as calm as ever, his brown eyes locked with Adabashi's cruel ones. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

Without another word, Adabashi raised the gun to shoot Kasuka, but the bullet ended up hitting Ruri's shoulder when she pushed him out of harm's way.

Kasuka wrapped an arm around her waist to stop her from falling while Adabashi stood there in the middle of the living room, wide-eyed and shocked. "This is all your fault. I hurt Ruri-sama because of you!" Adabashi snarled and was about to shoot again, but Ruri ripped herself from Kasuka's hold and stood in front of him to shield him with her body, which in turn made Adabashi give up on trying to shoot Hanejima Yuuhei. It was simply too risky and he couldn't afford to accidentally kill Ruri.

Kasuka grabbed her and flipped them around so that he was now the one standing between her and the stalker. "Ruri-san, please stop this."

Ruri raised a bloody hand and gently pressed it to Kasuka's cheek. "I can't stand the thought of losing more than I've already lost."

"The fear of losing something could be called a form of love too. There's something I haven't told you yet. When you knocked me down and got on top of me... I think I was really flustered. My heart started racing and my chest felt hot," Kasuka admitted.

Ruri watched him for a few moments before a small smile graced her lips. "Are you trying to seduce me? Now of all times?"

Kasuka turned his head to the side, looking slightly embarrassed. "I was just stating the facts."

"One more reason why I can't let you die for me."

"Stalker-san has a gun... scary~" Izaya's voice sliced through the tense atmosphere and made everyone there turn their heads his way. "Here I am, coming to visit an old friend and I end up in the middle of this terrible situation!" he whined dramatically and took a step inside, Adabashi immediately pointing the gun to his head.

"Who are you and why are you here?" Adabashi barked the question while he motioned to the new arrival to walk to the other two inside the apartment.

While Izaya was tempted to let Kasuka get killed, he was more than a bit curious about the freak and he didn't exactly want him to die before knowing for certain whether Kasuka was truly emotionless or not. He hadn't expected Adabashi to bring a gun to the fight, so at that point he could only hope that Shizuo got there before it was too late and the sadist decided to kill or torture the two of them just for the fun of it.

***

Shizuo was running as fast as he could and yet he was still at least five minutes away from his place.

[Someone broke into your apartment. I suggest you hurry up. I'll go see if I can help somehow.]

What kind of fucked up message was that? Kasuka and Ruri were in danger and now Izaya was trying to help them? It sounded unbelievable for a thousand different reasons, and yet Shizuo couldn't shake this terrifying feeling that the message was real and not just Izaya's way of screwing with him yet again.

He was being so careless that he nearly got hit by a car as he crossed the street, but the speed and the parkour skills he'd developed over the years after chasing Izaya for so long saved him at the last moment. He was drowning in fury knowing that someone had dared to go after Kasuka and Ruri inside his apartment, but he couldn't help but think that this too was one of Izaya's plans even if the flea had made it sound like he had nothing to do with it. Then again, the stalker, if it really was him, could've simply found Kasuka by asking around where Shizuo lived. Ah, it was troublesome and he didn't want to think about it, not when he was so close to getting home and to breaking that guy's legs for going after Kasuka and someone as sweet as Ruri.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" he kept on muttering, until he went around a corner and his apartment building came into view. He ran faster then, if that was even possible, because his eyes were met with the sight of Kasuka, Ruri and Izaya being led towards a van by a group of people and he didn't miss the blood on Kasuka's hand. Was he injured? And oh god, that was when he saw the blood on Ruri's dress and he wanted everyone there to die, die and die some more for hurting his brother's girlfriend.

Luckily, they didn't seem to have noticed him until he picked up one of them and threw him into another guy. Izaya took advantage of the momentary confusion and flicked open the switchblade, slicing people left and right while Kasuka pulled Ruri away from there and towards the apartment building.

Adabashi tried to shoot Shizuo, but the bullet hit one of his companions instead. He cursed under his breath and tried again, and even though this one hit the target in the leg, the man was still not going down. "What kind of monster are―"

The switchblade almost taking out the man's eye was all it took for Izaya to make Adabashi retreat. The stalker was glaring murder at him while backing away, but Izaya couldn't let his prey escape. "He's the worst type of monster," he informed the idiot who had made the mistake of screwing with Ikebukuro's strongest. "Have you been living under a rock?" he mocked while advancing towards Adabashi who was trying to stay out of harm's way by going around a parked car. "Everyone here knows that the name Heiwajima Shizuo spells danger, and you were stupid enough to go after his brother~"

Adabashi spat on the ground in disgust, like the mere sight of Izaya was making him sick. "You'll pay for this," the man said before he turned on his heels and tried to make his escape.

When Adabashi started running away like the coward that he was, Izaya called out to Shizuo to get his attention. "We need to catch him!" he shouted at the beast who seemed to be foaming at the mouth with how angry it was, its roar mixing with the cries of agony belonging to the fallen men. Angry mocha eyes turned his way and Izaya nearly flinched at the murderous glare thrown his way, but instead of doing as told, Shizuo went over to Kasuka while Izaya cursed under his breath and started chasing after Adabashi by himself.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Shizuo asked while his eyes roamed over Kasuka's form for any injuries his brother might've sustained during the attack.

As much as it pained Kasuka to see his brother hurt, he knew that Shizuo was strong and that a bullet wound wouldn't bring him down that easily. It looked like the bullet had only grazed Shizuo's leg, and even though it hurt to see the blond bleed, his brother had something important to do. "I'm fine, nii-san. I'll take care of Ruri-san, so you just do what you have to do."

Shizuo nodded and went in the direction he'd seen the stalker and Izaya run, his anger sky-rocketing after seeing Ruri looking so pale and like she was one step away from losing consciousness. The wound on her shoulder was bleeding heavily, and although he wanted to stay there, the sirens he could hear in the distance meant that Kasuka and Ruri would soon be safe. His phone went off all of a sudden and he nearly bumped into someone, but that person moved out of his way in time and Shizuo glared as he fished the phone from his pocket and raised it to his ear.

"Shizu-chan, we've just passed the bakery near you're apartment building. I suggest you―"

The sound of a shot was heard through the phone somewhere nearby and Shizuo's fingers tightened around the phone when he imagined Izaya bleeding out on the pavement. "Oi, flea! Izaya! You bastard, are you listen―"

"Stop yelling and catch up already!" Izaya shouted into the phone in a voice dripping with anger. He'd barely dodged the bullet and he was sweating a bit now after realizing how close he'd come to actually getting killed. "I'm going after him again. Where are you?"

"Right here," Shizuo announced at the same time that he grabbed Izaya by the arm and pulled him up, the two of them now running after the stalker.

"Took you long enough," Izaya hissed while glaring out of the corner of his eye at the blond running beside him.

Shizuo snarled a "Shut up!" and uprooted a stop sign in the hope of hitting the stalker with it, but the man fired another shot and he ended up dropping it when he had to hide behind a building so that he wouldn't get shot again. "Who the hell is this guy?"

"Adabashi Kisuke," Izaya informed him as he peeked from around the corner. Their prey was running again, so Shizuo pulled him by the sleeve and the two of them were running again. "He nearly beat Shinra to death while trying to obtain information on Ruri."

"What?!"

"It's what I wanted to talk to you about. I told you it wasn't about us. I thought you needed to know that someone was hurting people to get to Ruri."

"Is he okay?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask. Regardless of Shinra's hatred for him, Shizuo didn't like the idea of the doctor getting hurt.

"Not really," Izaya answered, frowning. "He was tortured, and Adabashi was planning to do the same to your brother, if not worse."

Shizuo could hardly think with how pissed off he was and he felt his anger surge as Izaya's words reached his ears through the sounds of their own rushed footsteps. Izaya was still talking, but Shizuo could no longer hear the words with how loud his ears were ringing. His mind was filled with murderous thoughts and all he could think about was killing the son of a bitch trying to escape. He was seeing red, his pulse was going through the roof and he couldn't calm down when all he wanted to do was rip Adabashi apart. Most people would've tried to avoid getting shot when the stalker turned around to fire another bullet, but Shizuo charged at him like a wild animal. His luck was that Adabashi had ran out of bullets.

Izaya took advantage of the situation and tried to hit the man with the throwing knives he kept in his jacket's pocket. One of them hit Adabashi in the arm and one in the leg, and it was at that moment, when the man staggered backwards, that Shizuo was upon him like a beast, grabbing him by the throat before slamming him into the nearby building. Kasuka had been through enough already and Shizuo refused to let anyone hurt his brother again. A little force applied on the man's wrist and the thing broke with a loud crunch that sounded like music to his ears.

Izaya actually backed away a few steps when he saw the crazed look on Shizuo's face which reminded him too much of that night when Izaya himself was in a not so different position and the beast had him pinned to a wall. It didn't take a genius to see that Shizuo's sanity was quickly slipping away only to be replaced by boiling rage as the beast's strong hands roamed over Adabashi's body, leaving broken bones and mangled flesh in their wake. It was like seeing a horror movie, only that it wasn't a movie and that the prey's screams were not fake but as real as Izaya's own had been that night when he had incurred the beast's wrath.

It was exactly what Izaya had wanted, and yet he couldn't help but be horrified by the terrifying display taking place in front of him. Oh, he wanted to see Adabashi scream and beg for forgiveness, which was exactly what the man was doing before Shizuo slammed his head into the wall and most likely cracked his skull, but the whole thing hit too close to home and Izaya couldn't help the wild shivers wrecking his frame as Ikebukuro's beast continued to crush the man who'd been stupid enough to try to hurt Kasuka.

A barely audible whine climbed up his throat and slipped past his lips when Shizuo threw Adabashi on the ground and then stomped on the man's leg, most likely shattering the femur if the disgusting crunching noise was any indication. A part of him was happy to see Adabashi scream and cry and try to crawl away, and it was what he'd hope for when he'd come up with the plan, especially when it looked like Shizuo was so far gone that he was one step away from murdering the man, but the stalker was crawling towards him, grabbing his ankle and begging to be saved before Izaya could run away. It was simply too much and he found himself frozen on the spot while the beast sauntered over to Adabashi and crushed the man's wrist under the sole of his shoe.

Right then the familiar stench of freshly spilled blood wafted through the air and Izaya's whole body shuddered in both terror and disgust at the too familiar sound of bones breaking. He tried to get away, but Shizuo's hand was now on his shoulder and Izaya thought he was going to be sick when the bloodlust coming from the beast was so tangible that he could almost taste it. He pulled out the switchblade on instinct and slashed at Shizuo's arm in the hope of freeing himself. Luckily, it was enough to make the beast relinquish his hold. Their eyes met as Izaya took a defensive stance while Shizuo was still with his arm in the air, bleeding and looking at him in surprise, like a child who had no idea what he'd done wrong.

But he soon realized that he'd screwed up when Izaya's blood-red eyes and the hurt and fear he could read in them washed over him like water being thrown over a fire. Slowly, his eyes traveled over to Adabashi's broken body and for once he didn't regret breaking bones, but he could almost smell the fear on Izaya and that's what he regretted more than almost killing the man still screaming in pain at his feet. He slowly lowered his arm as to not startle Izaya, but then he kicked Adabashi in the stomach, the man's body flying through the air and crashing into the wall. "He deserved it," he spoke in a gruff voice as he withdrew the cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket and lit one up.

Realizing that he'd screwed up, Izaya nervously licked his lips and tried to say something, but his mouth was dry and he couldn't find his voice. His hand was still trembling and he quickly shoved it inside the pocket of his jacket and hoped that Shizuo would forget ever seeing something as pathetic as that. And no, no, no, he didn't want Shizuo to stop, not when the beast was so close to murdering Adabashi and condemning himself to spending the rest of his miserable life in prison and away from Ikebukuro's streets, the same streets that Izaya wanted to roam in peace without having to look over his shoulder every step he took.

"You're right, he deserved it,” he said thickly while scrubbing a hand over his face. “In fact,” he then added while marching over to Adabashi and poking him with his shoe, “he deserves much worse for what he’s done.”

But it was too late and Izaya became aware of that when Shizuo gave him a pitying look before the idiot dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the sole of his shoe. If the beast was sane enough to remember that Izaya hated the smoke, then it was also sane enough to not murder a man. So Izaya did the only thing he could do in his situation. He burst into laughter now that he knew he had to go through with his other plan if he wanted to end his feud with Shizuo once and for all. He’d been in control and he’d gotten Shizuo right where he'd wanted him but the damage the beast had done was far too great and so Izaya had ended up ruining everything when he was overcome by the fear still slithering through his veins. Ikebukuro's beast was the only one who could divest him of his courage with a simple gaze.

Shizuo tilted his head and frowned at Izaya who was acting strangely. “Oi, flea, are you okay?” he asked, and he could’ve sword he saw those red eyes flash when Izaya glared at him like he wanted him to drop dead right where he stood.

“No, I’m not okay! You were supposed to finish him off!” he shouted and slammed a hand into the wall, sounding nearly hysterical. “Why can’t you be predictable for once? Why can’t you just kill him and end this?” he hissed while pointing to the two of them in turns. “He nearly killed Shinra and he tried to kill Kasuka too. You’re letting this monster go but you didn’t let me go?”

“That’s the point, Izaya. I don’t want to make the same mistake again,” Shizuo confessed while taking the phone from his pocket and dialing a number.

“What are you doing?” Izaya hissed, red eyes gleaming with wetness narrowing into murderous slits.

“Calling the police and an ambulance, what else?”

“Don’t you dare!” Izaya warned as he pulled out another throwing knife and tried to hit the phone with it, but Shizuo dodged it and snarled at him before taking a step in his direction.

Something had been bothering Shizuo for a while, and the suspicion that Izaya had leaked the information to Kasuka and Ruri’s whereabouts kept growing the more he thought about it. “You did it, didn’t you? You led this piece of shit,” he growled as he slammed a foot into Adabashi’s side, “to my apartment,” and he knew he'd been right the moment the insect burst into malicious laughter. “You’re not even trying to hide it,” Shizuo uttered in disbelief.

Izaya’s smirk grew wider and more dangerous. “Mhm, well, I didn’t think Adabashi would bring a gun, which is why I went in there even though I had to risk my life, but yes, I led him to your apartment. You were supposed to kill Adabashi and then spend the rest of your life in prison, away from me and from this city you keep destroying like a beast every time you lose your temper.”

“IIIZAAAYAAAA!” Shizuo roared and threw himself at the flea, but the insect jumped away and then started running at the speed of light, Shizuo immediately giving chase to the bastard who had put Kasuka in danger.

Even as he was trying to escape the enraged beast, Izaya pulled out the phone and sent a message. "I gave you a chance, Shizu-chan. Whatever happens now is all on you," he told the blond who was not at all being slowed down by the leg injury, but he ended up letting out a sound of surprise when he nearly got hit by a stop sign the beast had uprooted when they crossed the street. And perhaps he should've kept his mouth shut because the brute was now dead-set on trying to catch him and Izaya could only shudder while imagining what Shizuo might do to him if he caught him.

"Killkillkill!" the beast chanted behind him and Izaya jumped over a fence and headed towards a certain someone who could stop Shizuo and save him in the process. "Simon!" Izaya shouted as he approached Russian Sushi.

"Izaya, what is wrong?"

"Shizu-chan's gone mad!" Izaya complained as he ran past the man. He ended up breathing in relief when the Russian blocked Shizuo's path and then stopped the beast trying to get past him. He didn't stay to watch the show, but he could hear Shizuo roaring and cursing and the sounds of things being destroyed as the two of them went at it at full strength.

He kept running until he reaching the train station, not stopping once in fear of getting caught by the beast. The train was about to leave, so he dashed towards it and then inside where he finally took a seat and allowed his twitchy body to relax. Shizuo hadn't killed Adabashi, but at least the sadist had paid for hurting the doctor. It would've been even better if Shizuo had killed him, but Izaya didn't want to dwell on such things anymore. It'd been a long shot anyway, and even though the whole thing had been too close for comfort, he still let out a laugh knowing that Shinra had been avenged.

Sighing, he pulled out the phone, dialed a number and raised it to his ear.

"Orihara-san, I haven't―"

"I don't want to hear it. Get me what I want or I'll find somebody who can," Izaya threatened and ended the call before slipping the phone back into his pocket and staring at the view outside the window.

I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this…

Notes:

Blind Fury (A Game of Shadows) FanArt by LadyScoora.

Chapter 54: In a Memory

Shizuo cursed under his breath as he made his way back to the guy he'd beat up to a bloody pulp and possibly murdered. He'd calmed down a bit after his fight with Simon, but he was still pissed at Izaya and it took everything in his power to not get on the first train to Shinjuku and chase after the insect. He didn't even want to think about the destruction he'd caused in front of Russia Sushi, so instead he retrieved the phone from his jacket's pocket to call for help. He was in the process of dialing when he reached the place where he'd left the guy and he realized that the stalker was no longer there and that the only evidence that something violent had taken place was some blood on the ground and on the wall. "Weird," he remarked, frowning.

He was pretty sure he'd broken the man's legs, so someone must've taken the guy away from there. It could've even been someone sent by Izaya. No matter how much of an asshole the flea was, Shizuo was certain that the Informant cared about Shinra. The two of them had become even closer during the past few months and Shizuo doubted that the stalker's few broken bones would be enough to satisfy Izaya's thirst for blood. Either way, he had more important things to worry about.

"Kasuka, are you okay?" he asked as soon as the call connected.

"I'm fine, but I took Ruri to the hospital instead of Shinra's place because Celty-san said he got hurt by the stalker. Sakamoto-san is taking care of her now."

"Sakamoto, huh? That's good."

"Thank you for showing up when you did. You really saved all of us."

"..."

"Nii-san? What's wrong?" Kasuka asked after about half a minute of silence when he realized that Shizuo was acting strange. "Please, nii-san, just tell me what's wrong."

Shizuo gripped the phone tighter as he fought to control his anger. It was the flea's fault that Ruri got shot. Well, one could argue that it was Shizuo's own fault because he'd been the one to push Izaya past the edge and into an abyss of madness, but really, it was still Izaya's fault and Shizuo wanted nothing more than to beat the asshole to a bloody pulp. "Izaya told that guy where to find Ruri, so be careful around him. Never trust that insect, you hear me?"

"I see. Thank you for telling me."

"I'll meet you at the hospital soon," Shizuo promised.

"I'm outside the operating room."

After tucking the phone back into his pocket, he lit up a cigarette and headed towards the subway station. It was the fastest way to get to the hospital, and even though Shizuo would've preferred to go home and change first since his clothes were a mess (there was blood staining them in some places) and he was sporting a few bruises himself because of Simon, damn that guy, he figured that it was best to get to Kasuka as soon as possible even if it meant scaring a few people on the way there. For the first time in his life Kasuka liked someone and Shizuo could even go as far as to call it love since his brother had referred to Ruri as "that special someone."

It all sounded nice and all, and Shizuo was happy, but at the same time he was still worried that Izaya might put Kasuka in danger again. While the flea sort of made it sound like he would never hurt Kasuka the way Shizuo hurt him, it didn't look like the insect had any problems with endangering Kasuka and Ruri's lives if it means getting what he wanted.

"Ugh, troublesome," he muttered as he stepped into the subway and made his way to the back where he sat down. The whole thing was giving him a headache on top of the headache he got after the fight with Simon and Shizuo could no longer remember how many times the Russian had interfered and stopped one of his fights with Izaya even though said fights used to happen more often back when he was still in high school.

While Simon dragging them inside Russia Sushi and making them eat was not really out of the ordinary, he felt his ire rise at the mere memory of one specific autumn day he'd blocked but which somehow was starting to come back to him. For the safety of the people inside, Simon had made the two of them sit at the table situated the farthest away from the main entrance, after which he served them some weird sushi that Shizuo was extremely reluctant to try. It might've been because of the weird stuff on top and around it, or because Simon assured him that it was not made from humans, but either way he didn't want to eat it and it pissed him off to see Izaya dig into it like there was nothing weird about it.

Looking back at that particular scene, it might've been the first time Shizuo got turned on by Izaya. The flea was making weird sounds while eating the damn sushi, like he was enjoying it a bit too much, and the way the insect kept on licking those lips was pissing Shizuo off because he was not supposed to enjoy the sight. The most annoying thing however was that Izaya was doing it on purpose, and even though it'd been a one time thing, the memory still disturbed Shizuo, especially after he went through so much trouble to bury it deep into the recesses of his mind. While he might've never liked the flea, there was this unhealthy obsession with the insect he now admitted having, so Kasuka's words really shouldn't have come as a surprise now that he thought about it.

Their obsession however was not what most people assumed to be, but something born out of the hatred the two of them had for one another. Izaya wanted to ruin Shizuo's life and Shizuo wanted to break Izaya's bones. The sexual attraction was just an unfortunate side effect. In hindsight, Shizuo realized that it might've been the moment when he'd developed an unhealthy interest in Izaya's lips, those same lips always spewing insults and words meant to hurt him. No one treated Shizuo as a monster more than Izaya did and it was unfortunate that he ended up proving the man right.

He kept thinking about the past and Izaya as he made his way out of the subway station and towards the hospital and he felt his ire rise up a bit when he saw all the reporters gathered there in the hope of getting news on the two stars. A few of them shot him strange glares when he struggled to make his way through the crowd and Shizuo ended up breathing in relief once he was in front of the door and he was allowed inside. A doctor offered to treat his injuries, but Shizuo declined and instead inquired about his brother. The man was skeptical about the whole thing, but luckily Sakamoto showed up before Shizuo ended up punching the other doctor in the face for not believing that he was Hanejima Yuuhei's brother.

"I'll take you to Kasuka," the man said as he steered Shizuo in the direction of the elevator. "How have you been?"

Shizuo sighed and was about to light up another cigarette when he remembered he was inside a hospital. "Same as always," he answered as he shoved a twitchy hand inside the pocket of his jacket. "How about you?"

"I'm just worried about Shinra," the doctor said as he pressed the button leading to the third floor.

"Yeah, now that you mention it, how badly is he hurt?"

"Well, besides the elbow from a while ago, all of his limbs have been broken, as well as some of his ribs. I'd go into details, but I don't want to end up flying again," Sakamoto remarked nervously as he rubbed the back of his head.

Shizuo's eyebrow twitched at the memory of throwing the doctor out the window when the man started talking in medical terms, but for some reason he wasn't feeling guilty about it. "Who the fuck understands that shit besides Shinra?" he couldn't help but snap at the man, although luckily he didn't end up picking him up and throwing him through the still closed elevators doors before they even had a chance to open.

"Follow me," Sakamoto said after he stepped out of the elevator and headed right. "Ruri-san is fine now. I took out the bullet myself," he assured Shizuo in the hope that the man wouldn't destroy hospital property while he was there since he knew well enough just how volatile Heiwajima Shizuo was.

"Is Celty here at the hospital with Shinra?" Shizuo asked even though he had no plans to actually go see her after what she'd told him that time when he was behind bars.

"Room 303," the doctor informed him before he stopped in front of Ruri's room. "I have patients to attend to. Come see me once you're done so that I can patch you up."

"Thanks," Shizuo mumbled as he pressed the door handle, his eyes meeting Kasuka's the moment the door opened. He slowly closed it afterwards when he noticed that Ruri was asleep and he waited by the door for Kasuka to get up from his chair and make his way there. "Sakamoto told me that she's going to be fine."

"I know she will," Kasuka said with conviction, taking Shizuo by surprise. His brother seemed to think of Ruri as being very strong, which was strange because she looked so small and fragile. He remembered the blood and her pale face, as well as Kasuka's worry hidden behind a mask of calmness as he held the woman he loved in his arms, so Shizuo couldn't help but worry about her because she meant something for Kasuka and he didn't want to see him hurt. He wasn't a hypocrite to pretend that it wasn't about Kasuka more than it was about her, but it really wasn't his fault that he didn't know her very well. He hoped that would change once she recovered and the three of them could talk over dinner or something.

"About that guy..." he started slowly, "I caught him and I kind of lost it and I ended up breaking some of his bones, but then I went after Izaya when I realized the asshole set the whole thing up and when I went back the stalker wasn't there anymore," he ended up confessing all in one breath.

"It's okay, nii-san; you did the best you could." Kasuka felt the guilt coming off of Shizuo in waves and he disliked it. It wasn't the blond's fault, and in a way, Izaya had done what he always did, which was to screw people over for his own benefit. He assumed that in this case it was revenge on the stalker for hurting Shinra, and even Kasuka could tell that the seemingly heartless Informant cared about the doctor more than he let on.

"At this point, I'm hoping that Izaya got his dirty claws on the stalker," Shizuo admitted. "If that guy survives and he comes after you or Ruri again, I'm going to break his neck."

"Hey, nii-san?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to you?"

Shizuo let out sound of annoyance followed by a sigh. "Simon."

"Ah..." Stalker aside, there was something else Kasuka wanted to discuss with Shizuo. "By the way, I want to apologize," he said and his eyes landed on Ruri before he turned to a confused-looking Shizuo. "I was wrong. I didn't know what I was talking about because I've never liked someone before, but I like Ruri-san. When I was holding her in my arms after she'd been shot I realized that I can't stand to see her in pain. I could never hurt her, and I think that no one who truly loves or cares about someone could hurt the person they love. I shouldn't have claimed to know how you feel about Izaya, and for that I apologize."

Shizuo's expression was one of mingled pain, shame and relief, and even though Kasuka felt bad for bringing it up again, he didn't want his brother to think that he saw him as a monster who would hurt someone he liked, thought at the same time Kasuka couldn't deny that a part of him was seeing Shizuo as a monster not because of the inhuman strength but because of what the blond had done to Izaya. Kasuka might've chosen to take Shizuo's side, but he still found his brother's actions to be appalling and no matter how many excuses he'd tried to come up with, they always fell short when faced with the horrible truth of what Shizuo had done. "Nii-san, go home," he told the blond who looked like he could use some rest.

"I can't leave you―"

"Go home," Kasuka repeated in a tone that left no room for argument. "I'll be fine, and so will Ruri-san. She's a lot stronger than you think."

Shizuo was torn between staying and leaving, but perhaps Kasuka wanted to be alone with the woman he loved and Shizuo didn't want to bother them when they probably had a lot to talk about once Ruri woke up. On the bright side, even if the stalker was still alive, the man couldn't do a thing because of the two many injuries he'd sustained. Kasuka and Ruri would be safe for a while and the son of a bitch who beat up Shinra and shot Ruri would temporarily be out of commission. "I'll be going," he reluctantly told Kasuka who nodded and went back to sit on the chair next to the bed.

Shizuo's feet carried him outside Shinra's room, but he didn't dare enter. Too many things had happened between them and there was no going back to how they used to be. Celty was probably disappointed while Shinra hated his guts and wanted to see him dead. He missed the man's silly antics, as well as the peaceful discussions he used to have with Celty, and it hurt to know that he could never have that again. I really screwed up, he thought dejectedly before he moved to walk away, but just then the door opened and Celty appeared before his eyes. "I... I shouldn't have come here," he said and tried to leave, but Celty captured his arm and he had no choice but to stop.

[Don't leave, please.]

"I really shouldn't be here," he murmured without raising his head because he was too ashamed to show his face to his former friends. While it was true that he was still angry at Shinra for not taking his side after Izaya almost got him killed, Shizuo now understood that the bond between the doctor and Izaya was far deeper than what he'd previously imagined. Perhaps it was time to let go of resentment and accept that Shinra was Izaya's friend and that he'd lost Celty who used to be his.

[Your brother told me what happened. I want to talk to you,] Celty tried again, and she finally relaxed when Shizuo nodded and followed her inside.

Hating Shinra would've been easy, but Shizuo couldn't say that he hated the doctor. As a matter of fact, seeing him covered in bruises and bandages kind of hurt, and now more than ever he had no regrets over what he'd done to the stalker. "I don't know what happened to that guy... ah, so annoying, I can't remember his name. I chased after the pest and when I went back the guy was gone."

Celty's helmet tilted to the side before she raised the PDA. [Izaya sent me a message earlier. He told me it's been taken care of.]

"I can't say I'm surprised," Shizuo said, frowning, before he moved closer to the unconscious doctor. Shinra looked horrible and Shizuo kind of felt bad knowing that one of the man's arms had been broken by him. "I never meant to hurt him like that," he confessed.

[?]

"He attacked me and I only pushed him. I didn't mean to break his arm," he said and he nervously ran a hand through bleached locks stained with blood. Simon had gotten a few lucky hits and the memory of their fight pissed off Shizuo all over again. Tch!

Behind him, black smoke spilled out of Celty's helmet and her hand itched to pull out the scythe, but Shizuo's sincere words of regret stopped her from attacking him even though she felt betrayed now knowing that the blond had hurt the man she loved. She also remembered Shinra's words and how he'd assured her that he'd broken his arm when he fell, which meant that it really must've been an accident. She might've not believed Shizuo before if he'd told her that Shinra attacked him, but she'd witness such an occurrence back at their apartment and she now had no doubts that Shinra would go after Shizuo to protect Izaya. It hurt a little―more than a little actually―but she chose to not bring up the past in favor of focusing on the present.

[The monster didn't touch that arm,] Celty told him after she moved beside him. [The other one though... the bones tore through the skin.]

As he read the text, Shizuo ended up flinching a bit because of the too many times he'd broken his own bones as he grew up. A few of those times Shinra had been there and had taken care of him by stuffing him full of painkillers until the ambulance arrived. He couldn't have been more grateful for the help back then. Shizuo missed that and he missed Shinra and Celty so much that it hurt. "I'm sorry, Celty, for everything." He saw her type something but he didn't stay to read. Instead, he walked out of the room and away from the people he'd hurt with the stupid things he'd done because he was an animal who couldn't control himself.

Chapter 55: Ride to Destiny

The next day, Izaya went to the hospital to see Shinra. While the doctor was in no immediate danger, he still wanted to see the man. Ueda was supposed to 'take care' of Adabashi (as a way to make up for the blunder) the same way he had taken care of the three guys sent by the man's brothers, but someone attacked the two men Ueda sent to retrieve Adabashi and took the stalker away. As of that moment, Izaya had no idea where Adabashi was. It unnerved him, but at least the monster was no immediate threat. Izaya would simply deal with him if and when the man showed up again.

He was passing through the hallway when he happened to run into Kasuka who grabbed him by the front of the T-shirt and slammed him into the closest wall. "My, my, Kasu-chan, what's wrong? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?" His question ended with a chuckle; he couldn't help himself. Kasuka's hands were pushing him hard into the wall and yet the man's expression showed no emotions even though Izaya could read a hint of anger in those brown eyes. It was almost funny how much Kasuka didn't scare him, but then again Shizuo's brother had never really hurt him so it made sense that Izaya didn't feel the need to flick open his switchblade and bury it into the freak's gut for daring to touch him.

"Ruri got shot because of you. Hurt her again and you'll regret it," Kasuka warned before he released his hold on Izaya's T-shirt and took a step backward.

Izaya made a gesture like he was dusting something disgusting off his clothes. "You should be grateful the stalker got taken care of instead of threatening me." He hadn't exactly taken care of it, but Kasuka didn't need to know that. "Now your girlfriend can get back to her regular life and you two can go on dates like normal people instead of hanging out inside a monster's apartment."

"Just stay away from her," Kasuka warned and Izaya watched him turn on his heels and disappear around the corner. Shrugging, he turned as well and made his way to Shinra's room where he knocked on the door. There was no answer, so he pressed the door handle and went inside. Celty wasn't in there, but that suited Izaya just fine because he wanted to be alone with Shinra anyway. The doctor was still unconscious, probably pumped full of drugs in order to allow his mind to rest after the ordeal he had been forced to endure at the sadist's hands, but that was fine too because Izaya didn't think he was ready to face him just yet. Gently, he picked up Shinra's hand and placed it into his own.

"I took care of it; for now anyway," he uttered softly as he squeezed his friend's cold hand. Leaning forward, he ran his other hand through Shinra's hair before his hand traveled downwards and he cupped a pale cheek. "You're alive, and that's the only thing that matters. For now, you just rest." Right then he thought he felt Shinra's hand twitch, but he concluded that it must've been his imagination when nothing else happened and Shinra still looked very much asleep. "Adabashi screamed a lot. Shizu-chan really is a beast." He was frowning now, but that was because the image of a wild Shizuo was never something he enjoyed seeing, regardless of who the beast was unleashing his rage upon.

"I played a really dangerous game, so Shizu-chan might really kill me next time he sees me," he realized and he couldn't help but shudder as he remembered the chase they had before Simon interfered. "But you're worth it. You defended me when no one else did; you're the only one who cares." Celty had Shinra's love, but Izaya had Shinra's friendship. "I forgive you," he murmured softly. A few moments later he heard the handle being pressed and he turned his head in the direction of the door. "Ah, Celty, you're back."

[I went to see Hijiribe Ruri.]

Izaya was still in the process of reading the text on the PDA when Celty punched him hard in the stomach. The hit knocked the air out of his lungs and he wondered how strong Shinra had to be in order to take these as often as he did. "Okay, p-perhaps I―" but then Celty was squashing him into an embrace and all he could think about was what the hell is going on…? It was awkward and he didn't know what to do so instead he focused on his breathing while Celty got out of her system whatever it was she felt the need to do. Finally, after about half a minute later, she released him.

[The punch was for her.]

Izaya let out a laugh as he straightened his back. "I figured as much."

[And the… the other thing was for taking care of Adabashi, even though you should've called me to take care of him myself.]

Shrugging, Izaya shoved cold hands inside the pockets of his jacket and turned to Shinra. "I didn't want him to be alone." The truth was that he hadn't called Celty because she would've ruined everything, but he had no intention of telling her that. Izaya still resented her for some of the things she had said, but he chose to let it go just as he had forgiven Shinra for trying to strangle him to death. There were many variables to the whole thing and as a chess master he knew better than anyone that nothing was ever simple; they all had their reasons for doing what they did. He turned to Celty whose PDA was raised and already waiting for him to read the message on it.

[Thank you.]

"No problem," he assured her. "I have business to take care of, so bye bye~"

[Wait!]

"Hmm?"

[Adabashi Kisuke was hired to bring Hijiribe Ruri in by a man called Yadogiri Jinai, who was the head of the Yadogiri Shinning Corporation, Ruri's talent agency.]

"I'll look into it," Izaya promised and waved a hand as he walked out of there.

***

Izaya spent the next few days looking into Yadogiri Jinai and Yamashita Rikuto, but while he didn't find much on Yadogiri Jinai who disappeared soon after Hijiribe Ruri got shot, Izaya had enough information to find Yamashita and hand him over to the Awakusu-Kai. The guy was stupid enough to not only steal from the Awakusu-Kai but also to stab the person who found him out. On the bright side, he had Masaomi and Saki to look into Yadogiri, and that was good enough for the moment since he had more important things to take care of.

"He's in there," Izaya pointed to the door in front of them.

Shiki lit up a cigarette while his men proceeded to break the door. "Who lives here?"

"It's his ex-girlfriend's apartment. He probably fooled her into thinking he wanted her back," Izaya said, chuckling, while the Yakuza dragged out a screaming and kicking Yamashita who promised to tear out Izaya's intestines the first chance he got.

"I didn't think he'd be this stupid," Shiki admitted before he took a drag from the cigarette and followed his men outside the building.

"He kept this one a secret, so no one knew they were together, but I'm me and nothing escapes me~" Izaya shamelessly bragged. "I expect the usual payment," he reminded Shiki who nodded, but his phone rang and he excused himself. "Until next time, Shiki-san."

"As always, thank you for a job well done."

Izaya nodded and took a few steps before answering. "Onishi…" There was silence for a few moments, until he heard the other man shout something along the lines of "I got it."

Izaya's heart nearly stopped. "Say that again."

"I got it, Orihara-san, I finally got it!!"

Izaya stopped walking and instead focused on the conversation. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!! I'm one hundred percent sure! Orihara-san, I expect big payment for this. This wasn't easy―"

"Email me the contact information and everything else you have on the guy," Izaya cut him off. "Don't worry about payment. If the information is correct, I'll give you a big fat bonus. Good enough for you?"

"Sounds perfect!"

The call ended and Izaya just stood there blinking a couple of times before bursting into malicious laughter. "The pieces are almost in place~" he sang the words as he spun around in joy.

Surprisingly enough, Shizuo hadn't come looking for him yet and Izaya was starting to wonder just how much was the idiot willing to put up with before finally losing it. "You're going soft, Shizu-chan," he found himself saying as he slipped the phone into his pocket and bounced all the way to the store, then the subway and finally back to his apartment. He and Namie were still mostly ignoring each other, but for once Izaya was in a too good mood to care.

"Namie-san, I'm home~" he sang as he strode inside and closed the door behind him before making his way to the desk. Once there he placed the plastic bag on it and took off his jacket. "I'd offer you some sushi, but I don't think Namie-san wants any right now," he decided all by himself, chuckling, while reaching for the bag and sinking into his chair. Smiling like a little kid, he pulled out the contents of the bag and opened the box, eyes rolling in his head as the first piece of sushi melted inside his mouth. "You really do hold a grudge, huh?" As expected, Namie didn't answer, so he clicked on the email from Onishi (even though he was worried that the man might've exaggerated the success of his find) and his eyes went wide and the next piece of sushi almost fell from his mouth when he checked the attachment and he saw the picture. "Ahh ha ha ha! This is perfect, perfect!" he shouted enthusiastically and proceeded to swivel in his chair, alternating between laughing and giggling like a schoolgirl. "I had almost lost hope, but luckily―"

Namie's expression turned into one of pure malice as she started reciting the lines on her screen, cutting his rant short: "'I hate you," Izaya mumbled, but even he found his own words hard to believe when Shizuo was being so gentle and the wet lips brushing against his skin leaving feathery kisses in their wake did not suit a monster. Perhaps he was thinking too much when all he was supposed to do was feel. And it felt good, so he closed his eyes and shivered in delight. Shizuo's hand gripped a hip and Izaya ended up letting out a dirty moan when that hand slipped inside his briefs and massaged the still painfully hard shaft. "Did you h-hear… ahh… me?'"

"Okay, enough!" Izaya snapped. He had been stunned into silence the moment Namie started reading that disgusting fanfiction he didn't really want to think about, so it had taken him a while to find his voice. The whole thing was making him sick and he felt like throwing up, so he pushed the sushi box away from him before getting up and heading towards her desk. "Where did you find that?"

"Not another step," Namie warned at the same time that he pulled out a stun gun and pointed it in her boss' direction.

Izaya stopped and gave her a look of annoyance mixed with amusement. "Really now?" he shook his head in disapproval before letting out a resigned sigh. "This is not necessary. I just want to know where you found this."

"Actually, I found this a while ago, but you looked happy just now and it seemed like a good time to bring it up," she clarified.

"Namie-san is so cruel!" Izaya theatrically cried and ran back to his desk while wiping away non-existent tears. "How could you do something like this to your loving boss?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you'd appreciate that 'beautiful' piece of literature, since I know how much you 'love' Heiwajima Shizuo," she said, smiling innocently even though her eyes had a malicious gleam to them.

Izaya sneered in disgust. "Yes, it was 'fascinating,' but I have important things to do, so I'd appreciate it if Namie-san would read her fanfiction without sharing with the rest of the class. Thanks~"

"Tch, I don't read disgusting things like that."

"You just did~"

Namie opened her mouth to argue but she realized that she had in fact read it so she chose to remain silent. At least she'd pissed off Izaya and that was enough for one day.

***

Izaya never would've imagined that it could be so hard to convince a person to do something, but a certain event showed him otherwise. He spent nearly a week trying to get that specific game piece to play the role he needed it to play, and by the time he came back to Shinjuku he was so exhausted that he simply collapsed on his bed and fell asleep. He woke up the next day late in the afternoon, feeling a lot more tired than when he'd gone to sleep the night before. Cursing under his breathe, he picked up the phone from the nightstand and wrote a message:

「I'm back.」

The reply was almost instant.

[Welcome back.]

So Celty was not busy. Good. He'd been talking to her as often as he could the entire week, the Dullahan keeping him up to date with Shinra's state. It was how Izaya found out that the doctor had been taken home after spending four days in the hospital and also that Shinra was mostly grumpy because he couldn't move around like he usually did.「How is he doing?」

[He's still angry that I don't give him more painkillers…]

Izaya's grip around the phone tightened. Somehow, the thought of Shinra suffering just seemed to hurt in a strange way.「When can I come visit?」

[I have to go shopping and I have no one to leave him with. I'd appreciate it if you could come over soon. He's sleeping right now though, so that should help.]

Frowning, Izaya's fingers hovered over the keypad for a few moments.「Sleeping? It's not that late.」

[He wasn't feeling well.]

The pang in Izaya's chest suddenly intensified and his hand further tightened around the electronic device.「Is there something wrong with him? Besides the obvious that is.」

[Really bad headaches. I gave him a couple of sleeping pills earlier.]

「I'll be right over.」

[Thanks.]

Perfect. While it was true that he wanted to see Shinra, his objective was something else and it was for the best if the man was asleep when Izaya got there. He needed a certain something and he doubted the doctor would simply hand it over with no questions asked. 

Groaning, he stood up and went to take a shower. He would've liked to take a long relaxing bath, but the window of opportunity was small and he had to take advantage of it. His hand brushed against the stab wound in his thigh and he shivered, body suddenly going cold even though the water was still hot. Touching the stab wound was always bad for some reason, but it was nowhere near as bad as touching that other part of his anatomy that Shizuo so viciously tore apart. He hated hated hated Shizuo for leaving him so traumatized that he couldn't even wash his body without his heart speeding up and his body trembling. "I'll never forgive you," he murmured weakly as he proceeded to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. Never; no matter how sorry you are or how much time passes, I'll never forgive you. As always, he felt a bit nauseous after the shower, but he got dressed anyway and then headed out the door and towards Celty's apartment without eating anything.

***

As a Dullahan, Celty didn't exactly feel tired very often, but she had to admit that taking care of Shinra was a tiring job, not because she minded making him food or doing other things for him, but simply because the idiot was always complaining about how he yearned to touch her, about how bored he was or about how much everything hurt. And there was also that one incident she still felt embarrassed about no matter how much he kept assuring her that everything was all right and that she didn't need to worry. She should've literally handled that one, but instead she awkwardly left the room and didn't come back until a few hours later when Shinra was whining in a loud voice about how bored he was.

The whole thing was not easy and she ended up desperately running to the door when she heard someone knock. [Thanks for coming,] she typed at the speed of light before showing it to Izaya who was in the process of taking off his shoes. She couldn't have been more grateful for having someone fill in for her if only for a couple of hours.

"No problem," Izaya chirped as he took off his jacket. "Is he still asleep?"

[Yes. He hasn't woken up yet, but you can go in if you want. I'm sure he won't mind if you wake him up. He's been asking about you ever since I told him that you visited him twice at the hospital.]

Izaya's smile widened. "Did he now?"

[He's looking forward to seeing you. He's been worried sick about you ever since you two fought.]

Izaya felt this pleasant warmth spread throughout his body and he was so happy that he could hardly stop himself from jumping up and down. "Thanks."

Celty's helmet tipped to the side and she watched him in confusion for a moment before typing her question. [For what?]

"Nevermind~" he answered in a singsong voice before he walked past her and made his way to the living room. "Will you be leaving now?"

Celty nodded.

"Okay! I'll see you later; and take your time~" He waited until the Dullahan disappeared before making his way to Shinra's room. He carefully opened it and tip-toed inside, his eyes never leaving the doctor's sleeping form. He stopped once he reached the cabinet and he took a moment to really look at Shinra. The bruises on that nerdy face were not as strong anymore and there were significantly less bandages covering that messed up head. That's good, he thought, a feeling of relief washing over him. The man's broken body was covered so Izaya couldn't see the casts, but he was hoping that Shinra's left arm, which was resting on top of the blanket, would soon heal so that the foolish doctor could at least have one functional limb.

I'm sorry, Izaya mouthed the words before he turned to the cabinet and opened the glass doors as quietly as it was humanly possible, but he ended up cursing under his breath when he saw that half of the stuff in there weren't labeled. Feeling thoroughly pissed, he rotated his head and glared daggers at his idiot friend. "What kind of a doctor are you?! He then turned to the many vials, jars and small bottles placed on the three shelves and started reading the names on the labeled ones, hoping that the one he needed was amongst them. Unfortunately, there were even some with labels but no names written on it, and Izaya had never wanted to punch Shinra in the face as much as he wanted at that very moment.

"Unlabeled yellow bottle, top shelf, right corner," Shinra's voice rang in the silence of the room and Izaya was so startled by it that he ended up hitting the shelves with his shoulder when he jumped in surprise and half-turned in the direction of the bed.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya lied and immediately tried to change the subject. "It's been a while," he remarked as he made his way to the bed and sat on the edge. "How are you feeling?"

Instead of answering, Shinra was just watching him intently. Izaya didn't remember ever having felt so uncomfortable in his friend's presence, so he continued to smile nervously while waiting for the doctor to hopefully open his mouth and start ranting about something, anything.

"You don't have to hide from me."

Shinra's words, spoken in such a flat and emotionless tone, sent a shiver up Izaya's spine. He can't possibly know what I'm pla―

"I know," Shinra then added.

Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits and he couldn't help but glower at the man. "Then why?" he hissed the question at the same time that he gripped the doctor's wrist, but the man's emotionless mask broke and the mirthless smile on the bruised face spoke of deep sadness.

"Because it's what you want." There was a slight pause. "It is what you want, isn't it?"

"Mhm."

Shinra sighed softly. "Do you really believe that you won't hurt anymore if you go through with it?" The fingers wrapped around his wrist loosened and he felt Izaya pick up his hand and place it into his own. Somehow, the gesture felt familiar.

"No, but it's for the best," Izaya admitted as he squeezed Shinra's hand. The silence stretched for a long time after that, until Izaya finally broke it with a soft "thank you."

***

Izaya's hands hovered above the coat as he moved away from it and towards his desk chair where he sat down. He absentmindedly swiveled in his chair a couple of times before stopping and facing the city outside window. Finally, he had everything he needed for his plan to be put into action. Pulling out the phone from his pants' pocket, he dialed the blond's number and waited for him pick up.

"IIZAAYAAA!" Shizuo roared the name, forcing Izaya to pull it away from his ear.

Half a minute later, the brute was still cursing, so Izaya rubbed his temples and waited for the shouting to be over before he finally moved it back to his ear.

"Calm down, beast."

”I'm not going to fucking calm down, you piece of shit. If I catch you in Ikebukuro again I'll break your fucking legs. Better yet, I'll tear them off."

"No one likes a tease, Shizu-chan," Izaya chuckled into the phone.

”Fuck you!"

"Been there, done that," he chirped despite the mental image slamming into his mind, but the comment seemed to be working because Shizuo wasn't saying anything. With the beast now silenced, Izaya used the opportunity to speak. "I never meant for your brother and his girlfriend to get hurt. As a matter of fact, I feel bad about what happened, so how about I make it up to you?"

"Huh?"

"I'll tell you what happened to your brother in the past, as a way of apologizing for putting him in danger. You want to know what happened to him, don't you?" Izaya asked, and a malevolent smile appeared on his face when he heard the beast's sharp intake of breath.

"I'll take that as a yes. Tomorrow at six in the afternoon meet me at the place near the river where you used to hang out with your brother."

"How do you know about it?"

Izaya chuckled at the memory of how he came to know about Shizuo's favorite spot. "Shinra led me there one time when I was being chased by a gang. I happened to run into him and he told me about this place where we could hide for a couple of hours until things calmed down."

"I hope his legs heal soon so that I can break them myself," Shizuo growled into the phone and Izaya couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the idiot thinking that his favorite spot had somehow been tainted by a flea.

"I'll see you there~"

Notes:

The fanfiction Namie was reading is a fragment from Hito Rabu! (｡･｀ω´･｡)

I was too lazy to write new porn. _(:3」∠)_

Chapter 56: The Kiss of Death

Notes:

For this chapter, I recommend listening to: Vadim Kiselev - Moonlight Improvisation

Shizuo was already on his fourth cigarette when he saw the outline of a figure in the distance, one which surely belonged to none other than the flea since the spot he was currently pacing was not one people frequented very often, if at all. It was on the river bank, a bit of a distance away from the nearest populated area, a place that Kasuka had found when the two of them were kids. He remembered his baby brother telling him back then that whenever Shizuo needed a break from everyone and everything, the two of them could go there and enjoy the sunset together, in peace and quiet. A growl climbed up his throat at the thought of Izaya tainting this special place, but he'd tainted Izaya's body and that was much worse than what the flea was now doing.

Izaya might've thought that Ikebukuro's monster was nothing more than a dumb protozoan, but the truth was that Shizuo understood Izaya's reasons for constantly trying to hurt him. He'd broken the rules and humiliated his enemy in the worst possible way, after which he had the audacity to blame Izaya for everything. Looking back, he felt sickened by his old self. He heard approaching footsteps and his head snapped up, hand frozen in the air on its way to providing Shizuo with more smoke to fumigate his lungs with. He really didn't want to see Izaya, not when he was still mad (scratch that, he was always mad at the flea) and he still wanted to pummel the insect into the ground for putting Kasuka and Ruri's lives in danger. At least he'd get to find out what Kasuka was hiding from him, and that was what kept his boiling rage in check.

The man looked surprisingly calm, considering what had happened during their last meeting, but what hit Shizuo hard enough to almost make him lose the grip he had on the cigarette trapped between his fingers was the sight of Izaya wearing that accursed coat once more, the man looking exactly the same as he did that night when Shizuo had caught him and fucked him bloody. The man stopped in front of him, his expression unreadable.

"I knew you'd come," Izaya said, his lips curling as he eyed the stunned beast. It didn't take a genius to figure out why Shizuo was so surprised, but it was exactly what Izaya had wanted and it brought him deep satisfaction knowing that the idiotic blond was most likely remembering the night when he'd crossed the line, broke the rules and forever ruined their perfectly balanced hatred for one another. Izaya would forever loathe Shizuo with every fiber of his being while Shizuo would blame himself for what he'd done to his enemy, which was something Izaya hadn't expected to happen while the beast was pounding into him, further ripping him apart with each new vicious thrust. He'd been certain that Shizuo would gloat about it, but the stupid brute was so remorseful that he'd even tried to kill himself.

Snapping out of his nightmarish trip on memory lane, Shizuo took a drag from the cigarette and let out a puff of smoke, forgetting all about Izaya hating cigarettes when all he wanted to do was find out what Kasuka was hiding and get the hell out of there before his anger broke the dam holding it back and he really ended up killing Izaya. "I had no choice since Kasuka isn’t telling me anything," he grumbled unhappily as he leaned with his back against the wreckage of an old building. A most surprising thing happened in the next moment and his eyes went wide when Izaya's smirk disappeared and the informant suddenly looked so sad and broken that Shizuo ended up chocking on the smoke and then struggling to breathe.

"Before I tell you about Kasuka, there's something else I wish to talk to you about."

Izaya's tone was so unlike the one Shizuo was used to hear coming out of the informant’s mouth that he was starting to get nervous about what the man wanted to tell him. It had to be something serious since the flea wasn't taunting, insulting or even speaking in that irritating singsong voice of his. "I'm listening," Shizuo informed the broken-looking creature before him while dropping the cigarette on the ground and stomping it under the sole of his shoe, finally remembering that smoking around Izaya was not a very good idea. It could've even been the reason why Izaya was looking so weak and vulnerable. What worried him though was that his hands were itching to grab the flea and make him regret ever having involved Kasuka and Ruri in his revenge against him, but his mind and the guilt kept him from punching Izaya in the face and pummeling the insect into the ground like he so badly wished to do.

Izaya lowered his head, shivering slightly. "This needs to end," he uttered softly, still not raising his head. "So I… I'm going to tell you a few things, and then this whole thing will be over and I'll move on."

Shizuo's jaw fell. "W-What?" he ended up stuttering, not because he was nervous but more out of surprise.

"Before we met," Izaya started, suddenly shuddering and pulling out cold hands to tighten the fur around his neck before shoving them back into his pockets and continuing, "I used to watch you from a distance."

What? Shizuo suddenly felt the need to push himself further into the wall and away from Izaya, the gnawing dread of hearing things he did not wish to know making him regret his decision of ever coming there. He was only just starting to panic when Izaya's lips parted and the flea was speaking again, voice quivering.

"I was enthralled by you, so I wanted to know more about you, about this human with inhuman strength. You were different from the others, someone interesting enough to catch my attention." Izaya's head was slightly raised now, but a bit tilted to the side and his eyes were fixed on the ground, as though he couldn't face the man before him.

The confession made Shizuo nauseous, not because he was disgusted by it but because he remembered their first meeting and how he'd attacked Izaya for the simple reason that he didn't like him. Since then, he realized that what had made him swing his fist at the red-eyed bastard were the cocky smirk and the overflowing confidence the teen was exuding. The guy was trouble and Shizuo wanted nothing to do with him. A thousand thoughts went through his head, but Izaya's lips were moving again and he tried to focus in order to hear what he was saying.

"―ted your friendship… and perhaps more."

"W-What?" Shizuo uncharacteristically screeched the same question for a third time in less than five minutes. "What are you t-trying to say?" he stuttered pathetically, palms flat against the wall behind him and pushing into it so hard that it was starting to crack under the pressure.

"I'm trying to say that I used to like you!" Izaya suddenly shouted, pained red eyes gazing at Shizuo from behind fluttering damp eyelashes.

Shizuo violently shook his head. "There's no way you used to like me. You made my life a living hell! You tried to kill me!" he shouted back, sounding more than a bit hysterical.

"It was the only way to get near you, or for you to notice me," Izaya let out the words in one breath.

"You're trying to mess with my head again!" Shizuo growled. Izaya sniffled then and Shizuo moved away from the wall and grabbed Izaya's arm, shaking him roughly. "Stop this, right now!" but the flea let out a heartwrenching sob and brought his free arm to his mouth, covering it while tears began to stream down his face. It looked and sounded too real and Shizuo pulled back as though he'd been burned, legs feeling weak after hearing Izaya's confession, especially when the words were reminding him so much of the Izaya from his dream who loved his Shizuo enough to still want him even after everything that had happened between them.

"For a l-long time I w-wanted you to like m-me, and I never lost h-hope until…" He was wailing now, body shaking violently as he brought one hand to his chest and squeezed the material covering it. "Until that n-night."

Shizuo thought he was going to throw up, so he instinctively raised a hand to cover his mouth. Izaya was sniveling now, wiping at his eyes with quivering fingers while stammering about how Shizuo had utterly destroyed him that night and about how much it had hurt to be taken by force by a beast with inhuman strength.

"I thought I was going to d-die!" Izaya nearly chocked as he blurted out the words, his body falling into a crouching position before he was even done speaking. His coat splayed on the ground around him, shoulders shaking violently while he sobbed uncontrollably.

Shizuo's heart was beating so fast that he feared it might explode and leave a hole in his chest where the organ used to reside. He kept telling himself that what Izaya was saying was not true, that the flea was a lying piece of shit who was just messing with him, but the bastard was looking so vulnerable that it hurt. If what Izaya was saying was true, then Shizuo had really succeeded in utterly destroying the Informant. Izaya used to like him, he was certain that was what the flea had said, which meant that―

He took a step forward before he could finish his own train of thoughts, hands extending towards the ruined Informant and grabbing one arm to pull him up while the other wrapped around the man's waist, pulling him to his chest. Izaya was trembling harder now, so hard that Shizuo feared that the flea might fall apart in his arms. His right hand released the captured arm and moved to the broken creature's back, stroking it in a comforting manner. With his head resting on Shizuo's chest, Izaya's cries were muffles, but he could still hear them and the guilt he felt at having brought Izaya to such a state excruciatingly ate away at his very soul. Izaya's arms were hanging limply by his sides, either not wanting or not daring to cling to the man who had brought him to his knees.

Shizuo kept telling himself that he didn't like Izaya, because he didn't, really, even as his hand moved upwards to gently caress Izaya's head, and as he reached the raven strands, the Informant shuddered in his embrace, most likely thinking that Shizuo would fist a hand into his hair and violently pull at the raven strands. Guilt was truly one of the worst feelings in the world and Shizuo had constantly been drowning in it ever since that accursed day. It was this guilt that made him take Izaya into his arms and try to comfort him even if it was the flea and Shizuo hated him. The whole thing was awkward and he was starting to wonder if he was dreaming or something, but the whimpers sounded painfully real and so did Izaya's shivers that he could feel beneath his fingers. He almost wanted to pull back and run the hell away from there, but the flea's legs were obviously not working since Izaya felt boneless in his embrace and he would most certainly feel guilty if he left him there like that.

"I'm so…" No, saying it was pointless. Apologies couldn't magically erase Izaya's pain, nor would they lessen it. The boneless informant in his arms whimpered pathetically, so Shizuo gently pulled back Izaya's head so that he could look into the red orbs. The damp eyelashes were fluttering, causing more tears to run down pale cheeks while Izaya's lower lip was trembling. Shizuo was transfixed by the sight, but Izaya raising his arms and touching his shoulders made him jerk in surprise. Their eyes locked, almost as if they were gazing into each other's damaged souls, until Izaya tipped his head forward a bit and tried to reach his lips, Shizuo freezing and his eyes widening in disbelief when he realized that the flea was going to kiss him.

Their lips brushed lightly, but in the next moment he felt something pierce his throat and liquid being shot into him, Izaya's pained expression changing into one of absolute glee as the informant tore himself away from Shizuo's embrace and manic laughter exploded from deep within his chest. Shizuo recognized it now, the thing coursing through his veins and leaving him unable to move. It was the same thing Shinra had used back when the doctor found out about what Shizuo had done and came to warn him to stay away from Izaya. He staggered backwards and then fell down, his shoulders and head hitting the wall behind him hard enough to make his brain rattle inside his skull and blood pour out of the split skin.

"Shizu-chan is so stupid," Izaya spat out the words in disgust between bouts of malicious laughter. "I mean, I thought you were attracted to me, and I played my cards on that assumption, but I'm still surprised by how idiotic you can be." He noticed that Shizuo's eyes were glued to the syringe in his hand, so he raised it and gave it a brief look before his gaze settled on the fallen beast. "Yes, it's what you assume it is. I got it from Shinra, and you know what? He gave it to me, knowing that I'd use it to end your abnormal existence."

The way Shizuo's eyes widened in hurt made him laugh harder and he inserted the needle into the cap, placed the syringe into a plastic bag and shoved it into the left pocket of his coat before he moved closer to Shizuo, planting his feet on either side of the blond's legs and sitting on the man's lap, red meeting pale yellow. "Did you know that your brother suggested I take up acting? Don't look at me like that. I'm going to tell you about Kasuka, just not yet. Anyway, did you enjoy my show? Personally, I think it was way, waaaay over the top, but you forced me to take it to a whole new level of pathetic when you accused me of lying. You were right, but I needed to act pitiful enough to make even a beast feel sorry for me. As it turns out, you're such a protozoan that you fell for it. I still can't believe it!"

It was as though fury was setting his entire body aflame and Shizuo was seeing red, and yet he couldn't even move his fingers, let alone get up and pummel the insect into the ground until there'd be nothing left but dust. He'd been stupid, stupid stupid stupid, and deep down he'd known that it couldn't have been real, that Izaya wasn't actually crying, but the sight had taken him back to that night and the regret he felt for what he'd done to the man made him want to comfort him in order to lessen his own guilt. A moment later Izaya gripped a handful of bleached hair and Shizuo snarled even though he knew that he looked anything but threatening when he was nothing more than a rag doll for Izaya to play with. "An act, huh?" Because of the drug he'd been injected with, he found it difficult to speak, so he was talking slowly and he sounded weird, but it was better than being voiceless. "I thought so, but…" he trailed off, eyes looking at Izaya but not really seeing him until the insect's voice brought him back to the present.

"Indeed it was~" Izaya confirmed in a singsong voice, smirking. His expression turned neutral next and he leaned forward until his lips were right beside the blond's ear. "Or was it?" He pulled back and Shizuo looked utterly confused, mocha eyes transfixed on his face. "Just kidding!" he chirped the words and then tipped his head back as he roared with laughter. It took a good full minute for him to calm down and his expression morphed into one of rage as their eyes met again. "What? Were you hoping that I loved you? That I wanted you? Your stupidity knows no boundaries!" he remarked, sounding rather astonished. "You raped me, you monster. You humiliated me!" he bellowed at the same time that he roughly pulled on the blonde hair and slammed the man's head hard into the wall, making more blood paint the bleached hair red. "You tore me apart," Izaya hissed as he grabbed Shizuo's member through the material of the man's pants with his until then free hand, "with this."

Shizuo groaned and then hissed when Izaya's grip tightened. "Let go!" he demanded, and he was surprised to see Izaya listening to him and doing just that, at the same time releasing his hair too. It didn't take a genius to figure out what Izaya had planned for him and Shizuo just wanted it to be over (even though he didn't really want to die) because waiting around for the inevitable was much, much worse. "Stop with these fucking games and just kill me already," he strained to speak. Instead of an insult or mocking laughter, Izaya chuckled darkly and placed his hands on Shizuo's buckle, making him gasp in horror. "N-No way." The flea proceeded to unbuckle his belt and Shizuo was overcome with nausea when he realized what Izaya was planning to do. "Youcantdothis!" The words flew out of his mouth so fast that they hardly made sense, but the flea wasn't stopping and the finality of the zipper being pulled down froze Shizuo's blood in his veins and made him shudder despite being unable to move. "Izaya, please!" he begged in a voice that sounded foreign, weak and pathetic.

Izaya's brows furrowed in confusion, only for him to burst into laughter when the pieces clicked and he figured out why the protozoan was so scared. "Oh! Shizu-chan thinks that I'm going to rape him? Ahh ha ha ha! So stupid!" The brute was watching him in confusion, pale yellow eyes begging him not to do it. "Yuck, that'd be disgusting," he declared as he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a switchblade. "I figured that since Shizu-chan can't control himself, someone should do the world a service and castrate the wild beast so that it would never again be able to take anyone against their will. Hmm… on second thought, perhaps I should chop off your dick too, just to be on the safe side." The blond's mocha eyes were impossibly wide, the man's fear tangible enough for Izaya to almost taste it on the tip of his tongue.

"Nonono," Shizuo repeated the word like a mantra as unadulterated terror consumed him until all he knew was fear. The idea of losing his manhood was worse than anything he could've ever imagined, and at that point he was starting to think that he would've much preferred to get raped instead. "P-Please!" His voice was so meek that it sounded nothing like him, and the stinging in his eyes indicated the beginning of tears when Izaya flicked open the switchblade and pressed it against his still clothed member. Fear was choking him, leaving him unable to breathe, and he felt like he was going to die with how little air he was getting into his lungs. "Please d-don't," he begged, his sight now blurry as he watched the malevolent expression on the informant's face.

Izaya wasn't saying anything. He was just watching the beast, waiting for the terror to fully sink in. He'd never seen Shizuo looking so scared before, and it was a wondrous image, one he made sure to sear into his memory so that he would never forget it. It wasn't until Shizuo started hyperventilating and he was certain that the man was having a panic attack that Izaya pulled back the switchblade. "Just kidding, Shizu-chan, just kidding," he laughed, but the beast wasn't hearing him. The mocha eyes were unfocused, so Izaya slapped the blond a couple of times until Shizuo was looking at him again with eyes filled with terror. "I was just joking!" he repeated as he pulled up the zipper and fastened the idiot's belt. "Here," he chirped as he reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette and a lighter. He pulled one out and lit it up, taking a lungful of smoke before exhaling the air and placing the cigarette between Shizuo's pale lips. "Relax, ne? I'm not going to chop off your dick, even though I have seriously considered it many times before."

Shizuo was having a hard time hearing, let alone understanding what Izaya was saying, but he thought he heard the flea mention something about a joke and then felt him fix his pants. The cigarette between his lips was helping a bit, but he was still hyperventilating and it took a few good minutes until his eyes really focused on the insect's face and he could breathe a little easier. He saw Izaya snap his fingers and ask if he was back, but he'd lost his voice and now he was having a difficult time forming words. He'd had no reason to doubt Izaya knowing how much the man hated him, so he still feared that the flea was just messing with him again and that he was really going to cut off his penis. After what happened, he concluded that being utterly powerless was the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. If this was how Izaya had felt back then, then Shizuo couldn't really blame the man for losing his mind.

"Look," Izaya continued once Shizuo appeared to be somewhat back, "I've imagined many ways to physically torture you and to break your mind, and I'm certain that I would've been able to do it had I wanted it, but that really isn't my thing." Sighing, he plucked a second cigarette from the pack and lit it up for himself, inhaling the disgusting smoke that he'd forced himself to get accustomed to. "I very much prefer to inflict psychological damage, which I believe I succeeded when it comes to you. I mean, look at you, feeling sorry for your archenemy. How messed up is that?" Shizuo's eyes seemed to be fixed on the cigarette, so Izaya smirked and lazily took a drag from it. "You must be wondering about this, about why I'm smoking." The beast wasn't answering, but his eyes indicated that he wanted to know. "It's all about conquering your fear."

"When you left me in that alley, broken and bleeding, I never imagined that you'd regret your actions, but you did, and you pitying me led to this." A low, almost inaudible growl left Izaya's lips and he took another drag from the cigarette even though he absolutely hated it. "I hate people pitying me. I really do, especially you. Telling you the many ways in which you've hurt me was one of the hardest things I had ever had to do. I had to crush the remainder of my pride just to destroy your mind." Izaya's free hand went to his throat and he scratched at it to emphasize his next words. "Ever since then, hatred has been constantly chocking me, leaving me unable to think clearly." His hand moved and he brushed his fingers against Shizuo's cheek before they moved lower to the man's neck. "You were scared out of your mind earlier. That feeling making your body freeze and your brain stuck on wanting to escape is called fear, Shizu-chan. Now try to imagine feeling that way every time we run into each other. You wouldn't like that, would you?"

This time, Shizuo couldn't help the words as they rolled off of his tongue. "I'm sorry." He would never be able to understand Izaya's agony, but he had understood the concept of fear ever since he saw the video of Kasuka and Slon that Izaya had sent him. That was different though, and after Izaya's earlier threat, he now understood what it meant to be afraid because of something that could happen to him and not to someone else. The mere thought of Izaya castrating him froze the blood in his veins, especially when he still couldn't be certain that Izaya wouldn't go through with it. "I'm so sorry. I really am," he chocked, fear and guilt mingling and suffocating him with their overwhelming strength.

"Mhm, I know you are," Izaya agreed, softly exhaling smoke through his nostrils while watching the beast agonize over what it'd done. "I can't forgive you though; what you did is unforgivable." A low whine slipped past Shizuo's lips and Izaya patted the man's shoulder. "Don't worry Shizu-chan; I'm not going to make you suffer too much. After all, I'm not you. But you know, I was going to lure you here and then stab you ten, twenty, a hundred times if need be, until I would be satisfied, but that was before Shinra got hurt. Something interesting happened when I went to the hospital. I realized then how much weaker I've become because of this revenge game, and how this whole thing didn't only affect us, but the people around us too. I know, I know, you may be thinking that I don't care about anyone but myself, but I do care about Shinra and Shinra cares about me, and I don't want him to get hurt again because of us."

The thought of being stabbed so many times sounded terrifying even to a monster like Shizuo, but Izaya confessing that he cared about Shinra and that he knew how much he was hurting others with his revenge made him forget all about it and instead he watched Izaya in disbelief.

"Ah, ah, don't look at me like that, Shizu-chan. It wounds me to think that you believe me to be so selfish. I love my humans and I care about Shinra more than I care about anyone else." Shizuo was still looking at him as though he was having a hard time believing the words, but the man's expression softened and he closed his eyes, sighing softly before opening them again.

"I had a f-feeling you cared about him." Shizuo said, but he was having a much harder time speaking than before. It was no wonder though, not when he remembered Shinra saying how this drug could put an elephant to sleep. Shizuo was only human after all, even though he was a monster.

"Anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this even though I confessed to hating the idea of others pitying me." Suddenly, he stopped, his expression turning neutral. "It's because you're going to die," Izaya simply stated, no hatred or anger marring his words.

Izaya's words were final and Shizuo didn't doubt them when the man was looking as emotionless as Kasuka. It was not an expression he was used to seeing on the man's face and he was scared once more, knowing that he'd cease to exist. He didn't believe in an afterlife, so for him death was final, the end of everything. Would anyone even mourn him? He didn't want to think that people would feel relieved by his death, but he couldn't help but wonder if they were better off without him. Kasuka might've never really told him to his face, but Shizuo knew that his brother was disgusted by him; and so was Celty. His parents would most likely be sad for a while, but they had Kasuka who was the perfect son, so they'd be okay.

Frowning, Izaya raised a hand and gently ran it through Shizuo's bleached hair. "Poor beast, you know you're going to die and you're probably wondering if anyone will miss you. I doubt anyone will. You shouldn't have been born to begin with. You're an accident of nature and the world is better off without you." Shizuo's damp eyelashes kept fluttering to prevent any tears from falling and Izaya thought that was a strange sight to see. "It's for the best, Shizu-chan, so that the people around us won't get hurt in this neverending crossfire. I would never stop trying to hurt you," and as he said it, he pushed himself off of Shizuo's legs, flicked open the switchblade, raised his arm and drove the blade into the blond's mid-thigh, the beast's eyes widening in shock but no sounds coming out of his mouth even when Izaya was certain that he'd hit the femur with how hard he'd thrust the blade in.

"I'm merely returning the favor," he said as he wrenched the switchblade out of Shizuo's leg, the beast letting out a surprised gasp and the cigarette falling from between dry lips. Though he was tempted to burn Shizuo with it, Izaya picked it up and threw it away before continuing. "I'll leave you here to bleed to death, just as you've left me to die in that alley." Shizuo was now looking at him, those mocha eyes filled with fear, remorse and perhaps a little bit of relief now that he knew the nightmare would soon be over, but Izaya couldn't be sure about that. "I gave you a chance to live. It wouldn't have gotten to this if only you had killed Adabashi and went to prison, but you failed to take it, so here we are, with you unable to move while bleeding out."

He wiped the blade on Shizuo's pants and straightened himself, moving away from the fallen beast to admire his handiwork. Ikebukuro's monster would never again be able to hurt him and Izaya felt immense relief washing over him knowing that he'd be safe. He wasn't one to enjoy dirtying his hands, let alone personally take another's life (Slon had been more than enough) but Shizuo was just a dumb monster he didn't even consider to be human and that had been enough to give him the strength he needed to go through with his plan.

"I know I'm not entirely innocent in all of this," Izaya admitted as he pocketed the switchblade, "but really, it's all about perspective. From my point of view, I didn't deserve what you did to me, regardless of the things I've done before that. Shinra agrees too. From your point of view, I am partly responsible because I kept taunting you and screwing up your life, and perhaps I am, but you still shouldn't have crossed the line." Moving closer to Shizuo again, he crouched in front of the man, eyes locking with the blond's and then going blank as he remembered something. "There's one more thing," he said, eyes still unfocused, "one more thing I have to conquer," and before Shizuo could even guess what he would do next, Izaya leaned forward and their lips touched.

Shizuo was too stunned to react in any way, so instead he just stared at Izaya's face so close to his own while the man kissed him gently. It didn't make any sense for the flea to be doing this and Shizuo would've pushed him away if he'd been able to even if the kiss was pleasant and he was enjoying it. It was a kiss from his executioner, as if to seal his fate, and then it was gone, just as unexpectedly as it had started. The kiss of death…

"It must taste like defeat to you; but you know what? It tastes like victory to me. Like I said, it's all a matter of perspective."

Shizuo couldn't deny that the words made sense, and as he watched Izaya (appearing as though he was aflame because of the setting sun behind him) and the executioner looked back at him, he felt at peace for some reason. His fate had been sealed and he couldn't change it, so the only thing left for him to do was to quietly fade into the nothingness. Begging Izaya to save him would be pointless, just as Izaya begging him to stop hadn't stopped him from fucking the flea. However, there was one more thing he needed to know. "Kasu…ka," Shizuo reminded Izaya, his voice trembling with emotion now that he knew he would die and that he would never see his brother again.

"Kasuka," Izaya's voice echoed Shizuo's. "Yes, I was supposed to tell you about what happened to him." The beast seemed desperate to know, Izaya could see it in his eyes, and he would give him what he wanted, knowing that Shizuo's self-hatred would only increase. "As agreed, I'm going to tell you everything," he promised as he got up from his crouching position, took one last drag from the cigarette and dropped it on the ground, stomping it beneath the sole of his shoe before continuing. "Some of the people you beat up went after Kasuka." As expected, the blond's eyes widened in horror, Shizuo turning even paler than he already was. "They used to gang up on him and beat him up all the time, but you didn't know that because Kasu-chan hid it from you. They didn't touch his face, so that you wouldn't know. Getting into so many fights is the reason why your brother is so good at fighting, good enough to do his own stunts in the movies he plays. Who would've guessed~?"

Thoughts of Kasuka getting punched and kicked made Shizuo's guilt skyrocket along with his rage and he growled like a wild animal, the instinct to get up and kill kill kill anyone who's ever hurt his precious little brother making him fight against the drug coursing through his veins with all of his might. He wanted to tear them apart limb from limb, make them scream in agony before finally crushing their skulls within his hands. It was his fault, everything was his fault and he needed to just get the fuck up and massacre those guys for hurting Kasuka. Fuck dying, and fuck Izaya. He needed to get up and make it up to Kasuka.

"Well, that's the face I wanted to see~" Izaya sang maliciously. "You must want to kill those people so badly right now, ahh ha ha ha! But you can't! You should see your face. Anyway, this was fun, we should do it again someti― oh wait, we won't be able to, since you'll be maggot food. I'm guessing that you have about thirty to forty minutes left before you die, so I'll leave you alone to stew in your own self-hatred and guilt," he chirped, waving as he turned on his heels and started walking away. "Oh, there's one more thing," he added as he turned his head to the side and gave Shizuo one last look out of the corner of his eye. "On the bright side, you no longer have to worry about paying for the sink you broke~" and with that he went on his way, laughing for a while before the sounds turned to humming.

In that moment, Shizuo hated Izaya more than ever for not telling him about Kasuka sooner. Izaya was a fucking bastard, a fucking cruel bastard he wanted to punch in the face and break all of his teeth. He had to get up, get up get up get up and go to Kasuka, make him tell him who had hurt him and then kill those people, make them pay for hurting Shizuo's most important person. He needed to punish those monsters for daring to hurt Kasuka. The drug was still strong, but the more time passed, seconds turning into minutes, too many minutes as he struggled to beat it, the more control he got over his limbs. All he needed was time, time he didn't have because he was bleeding out and getting closer to death. The situation looked grim, but he couldn't give up.

By the time he managed to move his hand, he was already feeling dizzy from blood loss, and when he finally succeeded in getting to his feet, his vision was stained by black spots and he was faltering in his steps, almost losing his balance and falling a couple of times by the time he reached the stairs taking him closer to a populated area. He gripped the rail to steady himself when he nearly fell down, but his hold on it was weak and he doubted he would make it to the top. He still had to try, had to fight harder against the dizziness and weakness threatening to send him plummeting to the ground, but he noticed a figure looming at the top of the stairs and he stopped. It looked like it had no face in the sun's dying light―light fading just like Shizuo's life―or perhaps he wasn't seeing right when his sight was unfocused and almost completely covered in darkness. It didn't matter. He took a step, and then another, but that turned out to be the limit of his monstrous body and Shizuo felt the ground shift beneath his feet before he was falling, his head hitting the stairs and everything going black, as if a light had been switched off, leaving behind nothing but infinite darkness.

Chapter 57: Illusion's Play

"It's over," Izaya repeatedly uttered the words as he increased his speed, wanting to put some distance between himself and the monster he'd just defeated. The inside of his body kept alternating between boiling hot and freezing cold, reflecting the way he felt about what he'd just done. He kept thinking that he hadn't punished Shizuo enough, it hadn't been painful or cruel enough, but at the same time he knew very well that he would never be satisfied no matter what he did. Even knowing that, he was still having a hard time not going back and hacking that monstrous body to pieces, but he consoled himself with the thought that he'd inflicted a fatal wound to the brute's body―effectively killing the man the second he turned his back and left him there, bleeding and unable to move―and that should be enough. The coldness he felt spiking once in a while was an unfortunate consequence of him realizing that he'd killed yet another person, and by doing so, he too had somehow become a monster. A part of him kept arguing that wasn't the case since he'd given Shizuo a rather painless death compared to some of the things he'd imagined doing to him, but that didn't mean he wasn't angry for being forced into such a situation in the first place.

He'd been made into a murderer, not once, but twice, and all because of Heiwajima Shizuo. With Slon it was more a case of defending himself and trying to save Kasuka, but the man's death still haunted him and what had happened back then, at its core, was Shizuo's fault. Izaya wouldn't have involved Slon or even considered hurting Kasuka in such a way if the dumb brute hadn't lost his mind and attacked him, though Izaya should've known that it wouldn't go well since the whole thing felt wrong even while planning it. It was one thing to give Kasuka's location to an angry jealous boyfriend and wait to see what happens and another thing entirely to bring someone to rape the man. Rape. The word alone made him shudder and he shook his head to chase away the images starting to reappear. Even though he was working on accepting what had happened that night, he still preferred not to think about it too often, or ever for that matter.

Besides, he had more important things to worry about. Killing Shizuo had been the easy part; the hard part was getting away with murder. He could've hired someone to do it, but the idea of anyone else ending Shizuo's miserable life somehow made him angry and trying to figure out why that was at such an inopportune moment didn't seem very wise, so he pushed that thought to the back of his mind and turned right to pick up the bag he'd left behind a vending machine. Since he didn't want to risk being seen, he sneaked around the place, picked up the bag and then moved to the back of the store where he took off his coat and put on the hoodie he'd hidden there earlier that day. It wasn't something he usually wore, but that was exactly why it seemed like a good idea.

He then emptied the coat's pockets and placed it inside the bag, immediately flicking open his lighter and setting the accursed thing on fire. His skin crawled at the mere sight of it, and he realized it was a miracle that he hadn't thrown up all over Shizuo considering he'd been wearing the same coat he'd been raped in. He watched and waited until the coat burned completely, just like Shizu-chan's life, before he pulled out the cigarette pack and lit one up, by doing so adding more to the list of things that Orihara Izaya wouldn't normally do. Lastly, he pulled the hood over his head to hide as much of his face as he could before he headed towards Ikebukuro, keeping his head down and trying not to think about how Celty might react at the news. He had no doubts that she wouldn't take it very well, regardless of what the beast had done. Not my problem, he told himself. After all, Shizuo had been the one to start it all.

***

Mori Ken couldn't deny that he immensely enjoyed the Chess, Go or Shogi games he played with Orihara Izaya even though sometimes the youth seemed to be lost in a world of his own. When that happened, Izaya would just sit there, blankly staring into space, either frowning or just looking sad, while other times he would be too preoccupied by whatever he was doing on his phone to remember that it was his turn to move one of the game pieces. He didn't mind though. After all, most people had problems of their own to deal with and the young man before him wasn't an exception. In Izaya's case, there was an obvious deep sadness hidden beneath the cheerful mask the man seemed to wear all the time, and even though Mori Ken was tempted to ask what was wrong, he knew better than to do such a thing. Izaya could see it as an insult and retaliate by unleashing the darkness hidden much deeper than the sadness exuding from him most of the time. Orihara Izaya was a dangerous man―he'd heard the rumors―but one whose company Mori Ken enjoyed.

His eyes drifted over to the chess pieces and then back to Izaya's face, the usual smile on the pale face now replaced by a cold expression. The young man looked bored out of his mind, and even though he could still sense sadness, the hatred was unusual. Izaya would normally glance around one in a while and smile as he watched people pass by, but all Mori Ken could now see in the young man's eyes was this deep hatred and disgust towards everyone and everything around him. "You look tired. Perhaps we should call it a night," he suggested. He hoped that Izaya was simply tired and that nothing bad was going on.

"I'm not tired," came the simple answer, followed by a chess piece being moved.

Mori Ken nodded, but deep down inside he couldn't help but worry even more. Izaya's move was weak even for someone whose mind was someplace else, and since Izaya would never insult him by letting him win, it meant that something else had to be going on. One of the two most probable explanations was that Orihara Izaya was deeply troubled by something, but Mori Ken couldn't even begin to guess what that was. The other possibility was that Izaya was simply coming down with a nasty cold or the flu, his voice sounding strange supporting that theory. Either way, Mori Ken felt there was something wrong with the man since the moment he had sat down at the table. As he tried to decide what piece to move next, Izaya's phone rang and the man excused himself, letting him know that he'd be back in a few minutes.

***

Izaya was waiting inside the bathroom stall after having left the door slightly ajar so that he could see the people walking in. He was still smoking, which was weird in itself, but he couldn't help but light up another cigarette after the first one; he blamed it on the nerves. If Celty didn't kill him, then she would at least make it clear that she didn't want to have anything to do with him again. He still worried she might kill him though. Even the usually emotionless Kasuka might lose his composure and try to harm him in some way, which was why Izaya had to keep reminding himself to always be on his guard. He remembered their meeting at his apartment in Shinjuku and how terrified he'd been when the freak had pinned him down on the coffee table, but back then Izaya had been pretty messed up and most certainly not at his best. That was no longer the case though. They were all welcome to come seek retribution if that was what they wanted; he was prepared to face them all.

The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted his thoughts and he tensed as he waited to see who would walk in. As he unconsciously held his breath, he thought how strange it was that in such moments it seemed as though time always slowed down, just like that night. It was like the human brain always found ways to torture itself. He remembered wondering back then if it would ever stop, if Shizuo would ever finish, and he also recalled the immense relief he'd felt when the monster finally stilled inside him. A wave of disgust mixed with shame washed over him at the memory, but he forced it back down as he fought to get some much needed air into his lungs.

Finally, the door opened and a man walked in, pocketing his phone as he looked around. Izaya threw the cigarette into the toilet and revealed himself a few moments later, not wasting any time as he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside, locking the door to the small stall before finally meeting the eyes of the one who looked so much like him. "Did everything go well?" he asked, trying to sound calm even though he wasn't. "Roppi!" he hissed the name because the bastard was just staring at him instead of answering.

"No one figured it out if that's what you're asking," Roppi answered and proceeded to take off the contact lenses. "I can't stand these," he complained as he dropped one of them and went for the other. "Your eyes are creepy," he then added, dropping the second one too before he raised his head and dark brown-red, almost black eyes met Izaya's lighter ones.

"The only creepy thing around here is you," Izaya remarked, frowning. "No one should look so much like me."

Roppi gave him a disgusted look. "I could say the same thing about you." Like everyone else, Roppi too wanted to believe there was no one else like him, so Izaya showing up to his house shattered that one important thing he thought belonged to him and him only: his face.

"I'm older than you, so this face belongs to me," Izaya declared, looking completely unamused. When he set out to find someone who looked like him, he expected to find a person who could be made to resemble him with a bit of makeup, not an almost identical copy of himself.

"Whatever you say, old man," Roppi teased.

"I'm not old!" Izaya snapped, and it was as though he was seeing red as boiling rage nearly pushed him to flick open his switchblade and wipe that disgusting smile off of Roppi's face. Izaya was only a few years older than Roppi who was still twenty-one, but that didn't automatically turn him into an old man. "Besides, I'm twenty-one at heart," he stated, looking smug, "unlike you who acts all bored and tired of life like a sour old man."

As much as he wished to argue otherwise, Roppi had no comeback to that. Because he loathed humans, it was only natural for him to be either bored or tired of everything around him, especially since he was surrounded by humans who believed they had been brought into the world for some greater purpose than simply perpetuating the species. In truth, all of their lives were meaningless, Roppi's included. He knew and accepted that, which was why some days he wished he could go to sleep and never wake up. Explaining why he was that way to Izaya, a man who loved humans, seemed like a waste of time, so instead he chose to remain silent.

Izaya took off the hoodie and handed it to his look-alike who gave him the coat. He realized then, as they made the exchange, that he hated this guy the most after Shizuo. It not only took him a whole week to convince Roppi to play the role of Orihara Izaya, but he also had no choice but to reveal why he needed someone to take his place for a few hours. The disturbing blank expression on Roppi's face made him want to punch him, especially when he was looking at him as though he could read his darkest and deepest secrets.

"So how was it?"

Izaya gave him a disgusted look before he schooled his expression into a neutral one. "None of your business. It's over now, which means that it's time for you to leave." Though the temptation to cut the man was very high, he knew that pulling out his switchblade would do no good, not when he was dealing with someone who didn't seem to have a problem with blades slicing into his skin. "Give me your account number and I'll transfer the money now," Izaya offered as he fished out his phone.

"I don't care about that," the younger of the two spoke, sounding slightly irritated. "Though I assume you thought I had agreed to this because I hate humans. While the idea of reducing their number by one sounds great, the truth is that I'm more interested in knowing why you would go to such lengths to kill another person. You could've hired someone to do it for you, but you didn't, which means that whatever happened between you and that guy is something personal. Ah, let me guess. Your boyfriend cheated on you and you killed him for his betrayal?"

Izaya's expression appeared to be neutral, but he had no doubts that his eyes betrayed the deep hatred he felt for Roppi. This human with dark red-brown, almost black eyes, who looked so much like him and who hated humans, was playing a dangerous game. Before Roppi even had a chance to react, Izaya fisted a hand into the V-neck T-shirt, slamming him into the wall and pushing his switchblade into the unmarred throat. "Don't fuck with me," he warned. "Who do you think you are, making assumptions about me? You think you want to die now? Wait till you find out what real pain is. All I have to do is give your name to some people. Back off while you still can. You've played your role, game piece. You're no longer needed, so get lost before I break you."

Despite the fact that Izaya had a switchblade to his neck, Roppi still tried to push the man away, but he froze when Izaya gripped his sleeve and pulled it up, revealing the cuts on his forearm which ranged from freshly made mere hours before to fading scars. "Let go," he hissed and tried to push himself away from the wall, but Izaya roughly shoved him back into it.

"Mhm, I will, and then you'll go." Izaya's words were final as he grasped Roppi's wrist, squeezing it hard. "Because if you don't, you'll learn how much these don't really hurt."

The sound of approaching footsteps made both of them tense, but luckily that person only seemed to wash his hands before leaving.

"I'll go, but I don't want your money," Roppi said once they were alone again. He hated humans, he hated them, and Izaya more than most people for saying that he loved the very same thing that Roppi despised, but he wasn't stupid enough to challenge the man and risk ending up in some ditch. He very much preferred to end his own life than to have it taken away from him by someone he hated. "I hope we'll never meet again, Orihara Izaya," he added as he pulled the hood over his head and headed towards the exit.

"You know what to do if you want to forever be twenty-one~" Izaya chirped, shoving the switchblade back into his pocket while watching Roppi disappear out the door.

***

Mori Ken waited patiently, eyes fixed on the chess piece Izaya had moved before the man's phone rang. His opponent came back not even ten minutes later, wearing the usual smile while apologizing for taking so long. The first thing Mori Ken noticed when Izaya sat down was the strong smell of cigarettes. As far as he knew, Orihara Izaya didn't smoke, but that wasn't the most surprising thing. The hateful look also seemed to be mostly gone and the man was no longer looking at him with hidden disdain. If anything, Orihara Izaya looked glad to be there.

"I can't seem to recall whose turn it is," Izaya spoke softly, trying to look embarrassed. Mori Ken was his alibi, even if the man didn't know it yet, and Izaya counted on his testimony to keep him out of jail. There were other people around the place who knew him, but Mori Ken was the most important one since Roppi had spent a good two hours or more with the man while Izaya was working on getting rid of the beast once and for all.

The older of the two offered an understanding smile. "It's my turn."

Izaya nodded, but he was having a hard time hiding his anger as his eyes roamed over the board. Roppi was not a bad player―Izaya made sure to test him before bringing him to Tokyo―and yet the bastard had played a terrible game, most likely to spite him. "I apologize for wasting your time today," he found himself saying, "but I was waiting for an important call, so I was distracted."

"I'm grateful as it is that you come here every few days to play a game of chess with this old man."

"You're not old, Mori-san," Izaya chirped and moved a piece even though he had very little chances of winning after Roppi's disastrous play, "because the only thing that matters is how you feel on the inside." Mori Ken smiled and thanked him, and they played the rest of the game in silence until Izaya finally admitted defeat and they parted with a promise to play again sometimes soon.

***

It was a strange feeling to walk through Ikebukuro's streets knowing there was no longer a beast to throw something at him or to chase him out of there. He hadn't felt so free in over a decade, and even though he was tempted to walk though the district until morning, he decided it was best to head home and try to get some rest. The spot where he'd left Shizuo to bleed to death was not a place often frequented by people, so he wondered how long it'd take for someone to find the beast's corpse. It could be an hour, a day, a week, or maybe more, much more.

Maggots could be feasting on that monstrous body by the time one of his humans accidentally found the corpse, or a starving stray dog could just be hungry enough to bite a piece or two out of Ikebukuro's strongest. The image his mind conjured nearly turned his stomach upside down, but the sound of someone calling his name distracted him from his own thoughts and he turned to see Mikage stomping towards him. It was always fight or flight whenever it came to this woman, but this time he stood his ground, hand in his pocket ready to pull out the switchblade and flick it open if necessary. He refused to be chased out of Ikebukuro after finally getting rid of Heiwajima Shizuo.

"How could you?" she hissed, balling her hands into fists as she stopped in front of him.

Izaya gave her a confused look, one which turned into an irritated one a few moments later when he figured what it was all about. "I didn't know."

"I find that very hard to believe since you always brag about how you know everything," Mikage countered. It took everything she had to not swing her fist at Izaya and punch him in that annoying face for giving the twins hope only to viciously crush it afterwards. "Their date with Hanejima Yuuhei was all they talked about and now I can't even get them to return my calls. They're even skipping training. Everything is your fault, bastard!"

Izaya's eyes narrowed into murderous slits as his fingers tightened around the switchblade. He'd gone through enough shit for one day and the last thing he needed was for Mikage to show up out of nowhere and insult him. "In case you had forgotten, we're no longer together, so you have no right to lecture me."

Mikage's eyes flashed with rage. "I'm your sisters' trainer, so I have every right to do so!"

"I see you haven't changed one bit. It's probably why you still don't have a boyfriend." Mikage raised a fist and swung it at him, but Izaya dodged it and pulled out his switchblade. "Or is it that I was simply too good and no one can match my skills~?" Mikage roared with fury and attacked, but Izaya chose to go into flight mode since he didn't want to injure the woman, especially when he knew that he shouldn't have made that comment. Regardless of what had happened between them, Mikage had been his first and he couldn't deny there had been some days when he'd really enjoyed her company. He wasn’t one to apologize, even if he was at fault―as petty as that sounded―but he made up his mind to do something to make it up to his sisters if only to avoid any future annoyances like the one chasing him through Ikebukuro that very moment. "I'll talk to them and see what I can do, okay?" he tried, but Mikage wasn't one to let an insult slide.

"How about you just die, hah?"

When Mikage was like that, all Izaya could do was run. She might've been good at fighting, but she was no match for his speed, so he lost her pretty quickly and headed towards the train station. It was unfortunate to run into her while on his way home, but not unusual in a city where so many people knew him. He hadn't lied about his sisters though and he made up his mind to talk to them as soon as the police crossed him off the list of suspects in Heiwajima Shizuo's murder. He had no doubts he could handle the police, but he was still a bit worried about a certain headless rider and one emotionless freak. They weren't ones to forgive or forget.

Chapter 58: My Friend of Misery

That night, Izaya couldn't sleep. He was restless because of what he'd done and because of what he knew would happen next, not because he feared he might end up in prison, but because his friendship with Shinra might not survive the next few days. Izaya had no doubts that unlike some people, the Dullahan would not buy his lies, and he was painfully aware of the fact that the doctor may be forced to choose between the two of them when Celty found out about Shizuo's death.

He wondered what the brute's thoughts had been during his last few moments, if they were about how much he hated the man who had killed him or about how much he loved his brother. Telling him about what had happened to Kasuka when there was nothing Shizuo could do about it had been one of the cruelest things Izaya had ever done, but he regretted nothing. In the end, he believed that Shizuo had gotten off easily. It wouldn't have been very hard for Izaya to hire a few scumbags to do to Shizuo what the beast had done to him, but he never again wanted to be involved in something like that since the mere thought of it made him sick to his stomach.

The warm rays of the rising sun caressed his cheeks and he noticed that it was morning, so he got up and went to take a shower before heading downstairs and getting online. There was nothing on the Dollars chatroom about a dead Ikebukuro monster, nor on any other forums or social media sites. Everything seemed quiet, or as quiet as it could've been with people chatting about stuff that Izaya found to be extremely boring. For all he knew, Shizuo could still be there, lying in a pool of his own blood, cold and stiff as a board. The thought was disturbing somehow, like it couldn't be real. But it is, he told himself as he got up and went to sit on the couch to watch some TV.

In the end, he didn't pay attention to what was on, and it wasn't until he heard the door opening and Namie's heels clicking on the floor that he blinked in surprise and realized that he'd been lost in his own thoughts for quite a long time. "Namie-san, good morning~"

"What's so good about it?" she scoffed as she handed him a bag before heading to her desk.

"Lots of things," Izaya chirped happily, eyes sparkling with joy when they landed on the fatty tuna Namie had bought. For starters, he no longer had to fear an animal who'd nearly killed him, and if that didn't make it a good day, then he didn't know what would. He tried to ignore the fact that the fatty tuna tasted like ash as he chewed on it, not because it wasn't good, but because of something else he couldn't quite name. He only had a few bites before he picked up his phone, keys, slipped on his jacket and shoes and headed out the door, telling his secretary that he'd be back in a few hours.

The compulsion to head over to the place where he'd left Shizuo to bleed to death was almost overwhelming, but he knew that such a thing would be stupid and that he couldn't risk being seen anywhere near that place. The brute was surely dead and the only thing left now was for someone to find the corpse.

***

He was on his way to Shinra's place when he ran into Aoba who just so happened to be one of the few humans Izaya couldn't stand. The dislike was mutual, but that didn't stop Aoba from always trying to start a conversation with him.

"Good morning, Orihara-san! What brings you to Ikebukuro?" the blue-haired boy asked in a friendly tone.

"None of your business," Izaya was quick to answer, not stopping even though Aoba appeared to want to talk to him about something. To his annoyance, the guy followed him, falling in step beside him and smiling like they were best friends.

"Don't be like that, Orihara-san. I only want to give you my thanks for taking care of Adabashi Kisuke," Aoba tried, but Izaya was still ignoring him. "Mikado-senpai is grateful too," he then added, hoping to pique the man's interest.

"Is that so? You two seem to be getting along well," Izaya remarked sardonically, not sparing Aoba a glance as he retrieved his phone from his pocket to see if there were any news about Shizuo.

"You beat us to taking care of him ourselves. We even bought a wig for Mikado-senpai."

This time, Izaya turned to Aoba with an amused look on his face. "Really now?"

Aoba nodded. "Unlike you, Orihara-san, we didn't want to put Ruri-san in danger."

Izaya waved a dismissive hand and went back to checking his messages, as though the fact that Ruri got shot because of his plan didn't matter one bit. It really didn't, as far as he was concerned.

"Your sisters are very upset with you," Aoba mentioned, hoping to get a reaction out of the Informant who was acting like he couldn't have cared less about anything or anyone.

The comment took him by surprise and Izaya barely stopped himself from elbowing the annoying little shit in the face. He wasn't one to resort to violence, but it was none of Aoba's business what went on in his family. "That's none of―"

"I'm glad though," Aoba interrupted him, smiling.

Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits as he stopped in the middle of the street and turned to Aoba again. "Why exactly are you glad?'

Still walking, Aoba answered without even turning to meet the eyes of the clearly annoyed Informant. "I don't like competition."

For the first time in his life, it crossed Izaya's mind that perhaps he cared about his sisters more than he cared about other humans since he seemed to be having this sudden urge to flick open his switchblade and cut into Aoba. Or perhaps he just didn't like the idea of anyone screwing with the Orihara family. He knew his sisters could take care of themselves, but Aoba was not like most people and that somehow made him feel uneasy.

***

He was greeted by Celty once he reached Shinra's apartment, the two of them exchanging greetings before she invited him in. It would probably be the last time they talked in friendly terms and Izaya already knew that he'd miss it. For a monster, Celty was quite nice, even if she disapproved of almost everything he'd ever done, but perhaps it was best not to dwell on it. "How's Shinra?" he asked so that he'd have something else to think about instead of the impending fight awaiting him.

[He's still sleeping as far as I know. He stayed up late waiting for me to run an errand and I didn't want to wake him up. Will you be here for a while? I have to work and I hate leaving him alone, as I've mentioned before.]

"Don't worry about it~ I'll keep him company until you come back," he promised, smiling as he took off his jacket and placed it on the sofa. "Is he still complaining about the painkillers?" If there was anyone who knew how frustrating it was to ask for stronger painkillers and receive none, that person was Izaya. Shinra had never been hurt this badly before and now the doctor was getting a taste of what it meant to be the patient denied the sorely needed painkillers.

Celty tensed as she typed the answer. [He's worse than ever…]

"Who would've known?" Izaya gasped in mock-surprise and shook his head. "Are you leaving now?"

[I have to deliver a package today, but if you're okay with keeping him company for a while, then I'll go now.]

"Of course, take your time~" Izaya said and watched Celty head out the door. He didn't know how Shinra would react now that Shizuo was dead, but he hoped that the man wouldn't chase him away. His heart beat wildly inside his ribcage as he made his way towards Shinra's bedroom, the speed increasing even further once he stopped in front of the closed door. Gathering his courage, he took a few deep breaths before knocking. "You awake?"

"Yes, but wait, don't―"

Izaya didn't wait and instead entered the room, realizing what a mistake it had been when his eyes fell on Shinra and he noticed the tent beneath the blanket covering Shinra's middle section.

"You idiot, get out! Out! Now!" Shinra screamed, his face going red in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry!" Izaya screeched and immediately walked out, slamming the door behind him and taking a step away from it for good measure. There was an awkward silence for a long time, Izaya running a hand through his hair and coughing before finally opening his mouth to apologize again. "I didn't think that… I'm sorry, okay?" He was hoping his words would appease Shinra, but what he got instead was a growl coming from behind the closed door.

"Fuck you," Shinra finally answered.

Knowing that he was completely at fault, Izaya flinched at his friend's angry tone. The man had to be extremely angry to swear and Izaya knew that Shinra would never have said such a thing under normal circumstances. Truth be told, he couldn't blame the doctor for being pissed since he too would've gotten angry if someone had walked in on him while sporting an erection. "I couldn't have known!" he whined pathetically, his face still as red as a tomato as he didn't even dare look at the door.

"You wait for the person to say that you can walk in before actually walking in, you bastard!"

Izaya flinched again and took another step backwards, the anger in the doctor's tone making him envision a whip hitting him hard enough to split skin. "What else do you want me to do? I already said I was sorry!" He'd seen the doctor angry before, but this time it was different and Izaya felt terrible for screwing up like that. For once, he didn't know what to say to appease his friend. "Look, I'm going to watch some TV and I'll be back later," he added in a defeated tone.

"Then go already?"

"Fine!" Izaya hissed and stomped towards the living room where he picked up the remote control and sat down on the couch before pressing the On button. It wasn't like he'd wanted to walk in on Shinra when his idiot friend was sporting an erection, though he should've guessed that things like that could happen. He was a guy too and he knew the damn things had a mind of their own. Either way, he didn't really want to think about erected penises after what had happened to him, so he started flipping through the channels even though he wasn't really seeing what was on TV, too worried that the doctor might tell him to get lost and to never appear before him again.

It was about twenty or so minutes later when he heard Shinra call for him that Izaya turned off the TV and went back to his injured friend's room. This time, he knocked on the door but didn't go in right away.

"Are you kidding me?" Shinra's exasperated tone came from behind the still closed door. "Now you wait?"

"I'm just trying to… whatever!" Izaya snapped, exasperated, as he opened it and walked inside, neither of them looking at each other's faces.

Shinra was obviously still pissed and Izaya didn't know what to say. He took a seat on the chair next to the bed and folded his arms across his chest, his eyes fixed on a random spot on the wall. "You're in a shitty mood," he remarked, frowning.

"Oh, I'm sorry, mister I-need-more-painkillers-now," Shinra bit back in a mocking voice.

Scoffing, Izaya rotated his head in Shinra's direction and glared at the man. "Now you know what it feels like to be the patient."

"Maybe I'm in a shitty mood because you're an asshole who bursts into people's rooms without waiting for permission!" Shinra growled, eyes glaring murder at his rude friend. As though it wasn't bad enough that his father had seen him naked and with a hard-on, now his best friend had to be an impatient little shit and burst into his room while Shinra was trying to will away his morning wood.

Izaya flicked his wrist and made a dismissive gesture. "It's no big deal. We're both men, ne?"

True, they were, but the whole thing was still embarrassing. With his cheeks still burning hot red, Shinra turned his head to stare at the ceiling instead of Izaya. "It's so frustrating," he confessed, eyes stinging with the beginning of tears, "and painful."

"I know…" Izaya answered softly.

"I woke up and it was there and I couldn't do anything about it," Shinra nearly whimpered, blinking rapidly to chase away the tears threatening to fall. "I can't do anything by myself!"

"I'd offer to give you a hand, but I don't think you'd appreciate it~" Izaya jeered, very much aware that the doctor would've most likely cut him to pieces if the man wasn't immobilized.

"Eww, that's disgusting," Shinra complained, but he was smiling while shaking his head. "I'd rather have my darling Celty do that~"

"Like that will ever happen!" Izaya burst into laughter. Knowing Celty, she'd run away, punch him in the stomach or pull out her scythe and cut the idiot doctor for even thinking about it.

Grinning, Shinra gave Izaya a smug look. "There are some things that even you don't know." While it was true that he'd fought with Celty and that their relationship was not at its best, with him injured and Celty having to take care of him, Shinra had no doubts the two of them would eventually kiss and make up, as the saying goes.

As he watched his friend's happy expression, Izaya had to admit he was surprised. "Really? So Kishitani Shinra is a man now?"

Shinra averted his gaze, looking slightly embarrassed. "We didn't get that far." He then turned back to Izaya, eyes narrowing into slits. "It was in fact you who interrupted us."

"Whaaat?" Izaya gasped, eyes widening in disbelief.  "When did I do that?"

"It doesn't matter," Shinra mumbled unhappily, taking in a deep breath and then letting out a long sigh.

"I'm… sorry?" Izaya uttered softly, but since Shinra wasn't saying anything, he continued, "for everything. While I haven't gotten all my limbs broken before, I've been injured myself."

As his doctor, Shinra knew better than Izaya himself all the injuries his friend had sustained over the years, and out of all of them, the ones inflicted by Shizuo had been the worst. "Hey…"

Izaya's curious gaze landed on Shinra's now blank face. "Yes?"

"Have you… done it yet?"

Izaya took a sharp intake of break and fidgeted on the chair for a while before finally finding the courage to answer. "Yes."

The silence stretching between them was unbearable, and even though Shinra didn't really want to talk about it, he still needed to know. "Did he suffer?" This entire time he kept saying how he'd torture Shizuo if he got the chance, but deep down inside, he doubted he would've been able to do it. They used to be friends, or something along those lines, and Shinra couldn't deny that he missed having Shizuo―the one who hadn't broken Izaya―around. He breathed in relief when he saw Izaya shake his head, the weight resting on his shoulders after providing his friend with the means to bring down Shizuo feeling just a bit lighter.

"I didn't want to turn into him," Izaya said, unconsciously digging short nails into his thighs. "I… I never wanted it to come to this," he disclosed in a pained voice. "But I had to do it, for everyone's sake."

"I know." Shinra, better than anyone, knew that Izaya would've preferred for things to stay the way they were, even if that meant having to deal with Shizuo every time the Informant stepped into Ikebukuro.

Averting his gaze, Izaya took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

Izaya was obviously apologizing for hurting Celty, but hurting her like this was preferable over him one day going after Celty. He had no doubts that Izaya wouldn't have stopped at anything to make Shizuo suffer, and if killing the man was what it took to keep everyone safe, especially his beloved, then so be it. Celty would surely be devastated by the news, but Shinra hoped that his love for her would be enough to help her pull through.

***

Ikebukuro was as lively as ever, the humans going about their daily lives unaware that the beast had been slain. Izaya was in no hurry to go back to Shinjuku, especially now when he was free to roam Ikebukuro's streets to his heart's content. With Shizuo out of the way he could go back to being the great Informant he was before that accursed night. He just hoped that some of the clients whose job offers he'd declined would be interested in doing business with him again. At first, he'd done it because he was unable to properly work when he couldn't even walk, but afterwards he'd been too set on revenge to care about anything else, too blinded by hatred to see that he was hurting himself with those games meant to destroy Shizuo.

He knew now that he should've gotten rid of the beast as soon as he'd gotten back on his feet. All the pain he'd caused Shizuo was nowhere near enough to satisfy him, and now, as he stood there on the bench, watching his humans walk by, he was starting to think that it had all been rather pointless. Nothing would ever erase the memories of that night no matter how much he wished otherwise. Shizuo had still broken and humiliated him, something that was never going to change. Shinra, Kasuka and Celty would never look at him the same way again and nothing would ever make him into someone who was not a killer. The bitter realization hurt more than he wanted to admit, but that didn't mean he wouldn't accept it. Orihara Izaya had been raped and broken by Ikebukuro's beast and nothing could ever change that. With his mood quickly turning sour, he stood up and headed towards Russia Sushi, hoping to feel better after eating some fatty tuna since he hadn't finished the box Namie brought that morning.

He was in proximity of Russia Sushi when he nearly ran into the van gang and he hated himself for hiding inside a store in order to avoid them. He was still more than a little pissed about what Erika had done, especially when giggles would once in a while still resound from somewhere behind him, those annoying sounds coming from girls who'd most likely read those disgusting fanfics; as far as he was concerned, Erika had gotten off pretty easily considering she'd pissed two of the most dangerous people in Tokyo. Judging by the stack of manga she was carrying to the van, the perverted woman was working on remaking her collection, which Izaya was sure to burn again if that pervert ever dared to mess with him again. In the end, he had no choice but to wait until they left before walking out of the store and heading towards his destination.

Simon was outside, giving people flyers and inviting them to Russia Sushi, and as always, scaring most of them away in the process.

"Yo, Simon," Izaya greeted him in a cheerful voice even though he wasn't in a good mood. He hadn't seen the Russian man since that time when he was being chased by Shizuo, and judging by the destruction still visible around the place and the fading bruises on Simon's face, the blond brute hadn't gone easy on the man.

"Izaya, how are you? Here for sushi?"

"Mhm, I'm good, and yes, I'd like to order the usual."

Simon nodded and Izaya followed him inside where he sat at his usual table. Even if Shizuo was no longer around, Izaya was in no mood to observe humans and he preferred to eat the fatty tuna in peace. He remembered spending many hours over the years at that same table, insulting Shizuo and laughing while the beast glared at him with all the animosity in the world. And he also remembered that one time when he'd made sexy noises meant to mess with Shizuo's head. Looking back, he felt embarrassed about it, but only because of what eventually ended up happening between the two of them.

"Enjoy," Simon said enthusiastically as he placed the plate in front of the Informant and left him to eat in peace.

Izaya picked up the chopsticks but didn't start eating right away, choosing to stare at the nicely sliced fish on his plate while his mind wandered to his high school days.

"I don't like you."

Shizuo saying those four words was how it had all started, a simple statement which ended up sealing both their fates.

Well, guess what? I hate you too, Shizu-chan, even if you're no longer alive.

Chapter 59: Calm and Resonance

Izaya prided himself with the ability to control his emotions and impulses most of the time, so he was aware that he was slipping as he kept switching between the tabs on his browser or refreshing forum pages every five seconds. There was still nothing on any chatroom, forum or social media site about Shizuo's death and Izaya was more worried than ever that perhaps the beast had somehow managed to survive.  If that was the case then―

No, calm down! There was no way for even Ikebukuro's beast to survive after being stabbed and left to die in a somewhat remote area.

Click. Click. Click.

And besides, even if Shizuo would have somehow managed to get up and head towards a more populated area, it would've still taken too long and he would've bled out anyway. The only reason there were no news about the beast's death was because the corpse hadn't been found yet.

Click. Click.

That, plus it was really late―

What's the time again? 3:47 a.m.

People were most likely sleeping anyway.

Ha! No, they're not!

The proof was right before his eyes, people chatting about random things but no one mentioning Ikebukuro's monster.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

No, he would not go himself to check that Shizuo was dead. Unfortunately, he also couldn't ask around or look into it because he didn't want to be tied to anything related to Shizuo's death in anyone's eyes, not even those of the people who occasionally worked for him. The only reason he had trusted Onishi with finding someone who looked like him was because he always paid the man a lot of money and because Onishi knew better than to screw him over. That man was, in Izaya's opinion, the ideal employee.

Still nothing, but then he thought of Shinra and for the first time since he'd killed Shizuo, he wondered how Shinra felt about it. Those two used to be friends before Izaya had even met Shinra, so it couldn't have been easy for his doctor friend to offer the means of rendering Ikebukuro's beast unable to move and by doing so aiding in his death. He shouldn't have felt bad about it but he sort of did even though he hadn't been the one to screw everything up. It wasn't his fault. If only―

Still nothing. . .

Click. Click.

"This is ridiculous!" he hissed the words as he reluctantly got up and moved away from the laptop. The pull was strong and he was tempted to lie down and browse some more but he recognized obsessive-compulsive behavior when he saw it and he felt embarrassed even though there was no one around to see it. Realizing that he needed a break, he turned on his heels and headed downstairs where ironically enough, was the computer. Shaking his head in disbelief, he started pacing the living room, now itching for a cigarette even though he did not smoke.

The realization made him burst into a high-pitched laughter and he momentarily wondered if he was starting to lose his mind. He immediately dismissed the thought, snorting to himself and folding his arms in front of his chest. Clearly he was worrying too much over pointless things. Shizuo was dead; he had to be. He continued to pace the living room for a while longer, eventually moving to the computer and getting online. This time he only checked a few things, fighting with everything he had to not succumb to the urge of checking a thousand social media sites and refresh the forum page every five seconds. He would not be reduced to that! His eyes hurt though, so he closed them and leaned back in his chair, wanting to rest them for a bit.

***

It was around eight in the morning when Namie came to work and found Izaya asleep at his desk, head resting on the keyboard. Smirking devilishly, she pulled out her phone and took a picture, making sure to pocket the device so that Izaya wouldn't know what she'd just done before finally allowing herself the pleasure of waking him up. Normally, the man was a light sleeper, but he must've been really tired if he hadn't heard her come in. "Stop wasting time and get to work already, you pathetic excuse for a boss!"

Izaya woke up with a start, straightening his back and looking confused for only a moment before his eyes narrowed and then locked with a clearly amused Yagiri Namie. "I was just resting my eyes," he tried to defend himself in the most casual tone he could muster, shrugging and pushing away the keyboard.

"What were you doing at the computer the entire night?" Namie asked, trying really hard not to laugh when she could clearly see the keyboard buttons indents on her boss' right cheek.

Instead of answering, Izaya covered his mouth with his left hand to hide a yawn. "I was working, obviously," he finally said, swiveling a couple of times before stopping abruptly and getting up. "I'll be right back," he then announced as he headed towards the staircase.

"You finally did it, huh?"

Izaya nearly stopped in his tracks as the question registered in his mind, but he forced his feet to keep moving in order to not give away anything to a person as dangerous as Namie. "Did what?" he asked without so much as sparing her a glance, still going up the stairs even though his secretary was obviously expecting to have a discussion with him.

Namie gave no answer and Izaya didn't insist; he didn't need to. Instead, he entered his bedroom, closed the door behind him and rushed to the laptop he'd left on the bed the night before. The news of Shizuo's death were all over the place, people already pointing to Orihara Izaya as being the culprit while others mentioned the Yakuza or one of Ikebukuro's gangs. A wave of both worry and relief flooded him all at once and he burst into laughter, a mistake he immediately corrected by covering his mouth so that his 'beloved' secretary wouldn't hear him.

He couldn't afford to fuck things up now, so he got up and went to get some clothes he could change into after his morning shower. He noticed that his hands were shaking when he picked up a pair of pants but he didn't dwell on it and instead headed straight for the bathroom.

***

Namie thought it was funny how Izaya sometimes underestimated her even though the man knew she was anything but stupid. She'd noticed the changes in Izaya and she had no doubts it had something to do with Heiwajima Shizuo since there weren't many people in Tokyo―or the whole world for that matter―who could hurt Izaya. And now Shizuo was dead. The man must've angered Izaya a lot if the Informant felt he had no choice but to kill him. As things were, Namie was curious to see how Izaya would get out of this one.

From Namie's point of view, the funniest theory surrounding Shizuo's death was that of a lovers' quarrel gone wrong. She knew exactly how much the two men hated each other so she couldn't help but think how crazy some people were to assume that Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo had ever been lovers. Nothing about their behavior towards one another spoke of love and yet delusional fangirls seemed to think otherwise.

The weird thing about Shizuo's death was that the man had been stabbed, which shouldn't have ever happened because it incriminated Izaya even more. It was a terrible method of killing one's enemy when everyone knew Orihara Izaya's weapon of choice to be a switchblade and it seemed strange for the man to make such a mistake. Either Izaya had a well-thought-out plan that would exonerate him or her boss had completely messed up.

Angry eyes moved in the direction of the bathroom and she cursed Izaya for his stupidity, at the same time making up her mind to post that embarrassing photo of Izaya if the idiot got arrested. If that happened, she would certainly lose her job. Until then though, she had work to do, so she pushed aside her worries and started going through the files she had received that morning.

***

Izaya ended up opting for a bath instead of a quick shower because he was still very much tired and his limbs felt more than a little bit weak; not to mention that his neck and back were pretty stiff after he'd fallen asleep in his desk chair. The past few days had been a roller-coaster and even though he was well aware that he couldn't relax just yet, he still felt that he deserved a few minutes of relaxation.

As it happened sometimes when he took a bath, tired eyes ended up glued to the scar on his leg without him meaning to look there. The water he was soaking in was nearly burning hot and yet he was suddenly freezing as the memories started pouring in. Angered by his own weakness, he closed his eyes, raised his knees and wrapped his arms around his torso to get warm again and hopefully stop remembering bad things.

He was starting to feel warm again when he felt hands wrap around his throat and he opened his eyes, only to see an enraged Shizuo trying to choke him to death.

"You should've just left me alone," Shizuo's words resonated throughout the bathroom as Izaya felt the hold around his neck tighten so much that he couldn't even breathe anymore.

He let out a wordless scream and started to fight back, using both his arms and legs in an attempt to push away Ikebukuro's monster. His struggles seemed to be pointless though, and as his oxygen deprived brain started to shut down, all he could think about was how it was possible for Shizuo to be there.

In the next moment he woke up and jumped to his feet, taking a few greedy gulps of air as he frantically looked around the bathroom for the beast that had never been there. Once he confirmed that he was alone and that it had only been a nightmare, he breathed in relief and slumped back into the tub, this time keeping his eyes wide open so that he wouldn't fall asleep again. He doubted he could anyway with how fast his heart was racing.

***

Namie was just thinking that Izaya was taking his sweet time in the bathroom when she heard a knock on the door. It was a bit unusual for clients to show up at the office so early in the morning, but she wasn't one to complain about work. Now curious about the most likely new case Izaya would be asked to take, she got up and went to open the door. As it turns out, it wasn't a client.

"Good morning. I'm Sawazaki Kotaro from the Criminal Investigation Bureau and I'm here to talk to Orihara Izaya. Is he home?" the man asked as he took out his badge and showed it to the woman he assumed was either the man's secretary and, or lover.

The police showing up there was not unexpected and Namie had to admit that she was curious to see how Izaya would get out of this one. "He is; come in," she politely invited him inside and motioned for the man to sit down on the couch. "I'll let him know that you're here."

"Before that, would you mind answering a few questions?"

Smirking, Namie sat down on the other couch and folded her arms in front of her chest. "Go right ahead."

"First of all, what is your name?" Sawazaki asked after he took out his smartphone so that he could take notes.

"Yagiri Namie."

"Do you work here?" the man then continued after typing down her name.

"Yes. I work here as a secretary."

"I see. Do you happen to know a man called Heiwajima Shizuo?"

At that moment, Namie was very much aware that she could easily dig Izaya's grave deeper and she couldn't deny that she immensely enjoyed the power she had over the man. Unfortunately, she had nothing to gain if Izaya got arrested. "I've heard of Heiwajima Shizuo and I've seen him a couple of times before but I can't say that I know him personally."

"How about Orihara-san?"

"What about me?" Izaya interfered before Namie could answer. While he didn't think that his 'beloved' secretary would go on a rant about how much he hated Shizuo, he preferred not to take the chance.

"Good morning, Orihara-san. I'm Sawazaki Kotaro from the Criminal Investigation Bureau and I'm here to ask you a few questions."

"I'm going back to work if we're done here," Namie announced as she got up.

Sawazaki gave it some thought before answering. "Yes, for now," he told her and then turned his attention to the man called Orihara Izaya who had just arrived downstairs.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Izaya offered, smiling, as he sat down.

Sawazaki shook his head. "No, I'm good, thank you. I'd prefer we go straight to the subject."

"And what subject might that be?"

"Do you know a man called Heiwajima Shizuo?"

Judging by the intense gaze he was receiving, the man was trying to read him, so Izaya knew he had to give a stellar performance. He sighed softly and shook his head as though the subject of Heiwajima Shizuo was a nuisance he didn't want to deal with. "If this is about the rumor I've read online when I woke up today, then I can't say I'm surprised."

"And why is that?"

"Shizuo has made a lot of enemies over the years because of his violent tendencies," Izaya said, figuring it was best to keep it simple instead of going on a rant about how much he despised the beast.

"I take it you knew him well?"

"As well as I could when he was always trying to kill me the second he saw me."

"And how did you feel about that?"

"It bothered me, but not enough to want to kill him, if that's what you're asking."

Sawazaki was looking for signs that Izaya was lying but he couldn't find any. The man wasn't staring intently at him, blinking rapidly or fidgeting, and his breathing seemed normal. None of the signs that gave away a liar were present and he was starting to wonder if Heiwajima Kasuka had been right about this man being a professional liar or completely wrong and Orihara Izaya had nothing to do with Heiwajima Shizuo's stabbing. "Where were you last evening?"

"I was in Ikebukuro, playing chess with my friend Mori Ken." Sawazaki wrote down the name and Izaya watched him calmly. "In the park," he then added, guessing the man's next question. "He goes there almost every day."

"Thank you for your time," Sawazaki said as he got up and pocketed his phone.

Izaya got up as well. "No problem." He led the man to the door, opened it and hoped the man would leave already since he could only pretend for so long before making a mistake.

"Don't leave the city," Sawazaki warned and Izaya nodded before closing the door and heading to his desk.

"I see you already have everything planned out," Namie remarked.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Now stop wasting time and get back to work."

Seeing how Izaya was not yet in the mood to converse, she rolled her eyes and went back to work. Knowing him, he'd be ranting about something soon enough since the man loved to hear the sound of his own voice.

***

Realizing that Mori Ken would most likely not hang out at the park so early in the morning, Sawazaki decided to go see a man called Tanaka Tom who was apparently Heiwajima Shizuo's friend and colleague. He'd talked to the man on the phone before seeing Orihara Izaya and was told by him that he'd be home all day. Since he'd been given the address, he checked his phone and then headed in the direction of the man's apartment. He knocked on the door once he arrived there and he heard a tired voice from behind it telling him to come in.

He found Tanaka Tom sitting on the couch, a cigarette hanging between dry lips while the man seemed to blankly stare into space. "I'm here about Heiwajima Shizuo. I'm Sawazaki Kotaro from the Criminal Investigation Bureau. We talked on the phone this morning." The man regarded him in silence for a long moment, his expression indecipherable.

"I know," Tom said in a voice that sounded nothing like his usual one. He still couldn't believe that Shizuo was dead and he was hoping it was all a nightmare and that he would wake up soon. "I thought it was strange that he didn't show up at work yesterday but I never imagined…" he drifted off for a bit before inviting the man to sit down and forcing himself to pay attention so that he could answer the questions as accurately as possible and hopefully provide anything that would help catch the culprit.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Sawazaki started, ready to type down anything important.

Tom took a drag from the cigarette and exhaled the smoke before answering. "Two days ago, at work."

"Did anything strange happen that day?"

"He was in a bad mood, but it wasn't unusual for him."

"I assume you know a man called Orihara Izaya."

"Yes, I know him," Tom growled the answer in an uncharacteristic tone, anger boiling inside him at the mere mention of that name.

"I've heard they fought all the time," Hawazaki remarked.

"They used to fight a lot more in the past, but something must've happened a while back because Shizuo was always saying something about hurting Orihara Izaya and how sorry he felt about it. Shizuo started acting strange around the time Orihara went missing for a while and the two of them seemed awkward around each other after that whenever they met."

"Any ideas on what might've happened?"

"Shizuo wasn't one to go easy on Izaya since their hatred for one another ran deep, so I'm guessing he caught him and nearly killed him. It would explain why Orihara went missing for a while. Listen Detective, Shizuo was a good man, regardless of what you might hear about him, so please catch whoever did this," Tom pleaded earnestly.

"I will do my best. Please call me if you remember anything else."

Tom nodded and waited for the man to leave before lighting up another cigarette and inhaling some much needed smoke. He felt so depressed that he took the day off because he doubted he could function properly knowing that his best friend was dead. They'd known each other since middle school and Shizuo was one of the few people he cared about. His fist tightened to the point that his nails punctured the skin but he didn't feel it. All he felt was anger and grief.

***

"Mori Ken?"

"Yes," the man confirmed as he raised his head to see the young man addressing him.

"May we talk for a bit?" Sawazaki asked at the same time that he took out his badge.

"Of course. How may I be of help?"

"Is it true that you were playing chess with a man called Orihara Izaya two days ago, in the evening?"

Mori Ken's eyes flickered down to the chess board momentarily before nodding his head. "Yes, it's true. We started at around five in the afternoon and kept playing until late in the evening. He left an hour or so after it got dark."

Sawazaki ended up frowning since Izaya having an alibi complicated things. "Did he leave at all during that time?"

Mori Ken scratched his chin, looking pensive. "He went to the public bathroom sometimes after it got dark, but he wasn't gone for more than ten minutes."

"Did anything strange happen while you were playing?"

"He seemed distracted, but that's not unusual in today's youth," Mori Ken said, shrugging slightly.

"How about Heiwajima Shizuo? Do you know anyone going by that name?"

"No, I don't." The questions were worrying him though. "I'm sorry, but did something happen to Orihara-kun?"

"No, he's fine. Is there anyone else who saw Orihara Izaya that evening?"

"Almost everyone here," Mori Ken said, smiling softly and making a gesture indicating the people around them.

***

Izaya was still in the process of ignoring Namie, or trying to, when the phone rang. His eyes slightly widened when he saw who it was and he smirked at the thought of exchanging a few words with the emotionless freak. Instead of answering right away, he got up and went upstairs so that he could talk in peace without Namie eavesdropping on his conversation. "Hello?" he answered as soon as he sat down on the bed and got ready for a lengthy talk.

"You're not going to get away with it."

Kasuka's tone seemed as emotionless as ever but Izaya could detect a hint of anger somewhere in there. "I don't know what you're talking about, Kasu-chan," he replied in an innocent tone and expected Kasuka to continue threatening him but the man unexpectedly ended the call. Izaya was left there, blinking in surprise and wondering why Kasuka didn't tell him exactly how he was going to make him pay for killing Shizuo.

Then again, it was in Kasuka's nature to not speak too much even when one hoped otherwise and he was curious to see how the freak would get back at him for murdering his precious brother.

"I'm looking forward to it, Kasu-chan~"

Chapter 60: Feel The Anger

Dodging Namie's questions was starting to become exhausting and Izaya felt that he was about to explode with that accursed woman hounding him. She kept trying to fish for information or to make him spill the beans but that stuff didn't work on him and he could read on her face some of the frustration she was feeling.

"I can't believe you were stupid enough to stab him," Namie started once again, this time hoping to make him talk by insulting his intelligence. "Everyone knows your weapon of choice is a switchblade, so to kill Heiwajima Shizuo with one is the epitome of stupidity."

"And I can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with your ears since you're obviously not hearing a word I'm saying," Izaya remarked, rolling his eyes and letting out an exasperated sigh when Namie continued to rant instead of getting the hint and shutting the hell up. Deciding that he'd had enough, he stood up, picked up his jacket and went out the door, nearly slamming it behind him.

"That's what I get for hiring her as my secretary," Izaya hissed the words as he made his way down the stairs. He could've taken the elevator but he didn't have the patience to wait for it and he wanted to get as quickly and as far away from Namie as possible. That woman was one of the few people who knew exactly how to annoy him and Izaya didn't like that. Namie aside, he doubted he could rest before seeing Shizuo's corpse. The beast had probably been taken to the nearest hospital for the autopsy and he knew just how to get what he wanted without raising suspicions. Smirking, he walked out of the building, heading towards the nearest train station from where he could hop a ride to Ikebukuro.

The next part wasn't to Izaya's taste since it involved him getting hurt but he needed a reason to go to the hospital and he couldn't think of a better way to achieve that then to get punched by Simon who would surely hurt him for killing Shizuo. If there was anyone besides Erika who wanted him and Shizuo to get along, that was Simon.

Surprisingly enough, the Russian giant wasn't out in the street handing out fliers or inviting people inside like he usually did, though it was funny to still see vestiges of the fight between Simon and Shizuo from back when Izaya had lured the beast towards Simon who just so happened to be one of the two people who could stop the rampaging brute. The other one was Shishizaki, but the mere thought of that guy made him angry and Izaya didn't want to think about the bastard who was as fast as him and as strong as Shizuo.

Without hesitation, he walked into the restaurant, the few heads turning in his direction displaying tight lips and eyes narrowed in suspicion. Unlike Dennis, who had simply stopped what he was doing and was now staring at him, Simon walked in his direction, wearing a disturbing smile on his face, and asked if Izaya could follow him to the back of the restaurant. Knowing what he was getting himself into, Izaya took a deep breath and followed Simon, the man turning to face him as soon as they were out of view from the rest of the customers.

"Как дела?" Izaya asked, trying not to sound nervous even though he could still clearly remember how much it had hurt to get punched by Simon. The look in the Russian's eyes was kind of scary and Izaya was having a hard time keeping his body rooted on the spot when all he wanted to do was to run the hell away from there. Sure, he could've cut himself instead to fake an injury, but getting hurt by someone else seemed like a better idea, especially if Sawazaki or anyone else were to inquire about his presence at the hospital. "Simon…?" Izaya uttered the name, now feeling slightly annoyed that the Russian was just staring at him instead of saying something.

"Did you kill Shizuo?" Simon asked, balling his right hand into a tight fist in preparation of punching Izaya in the face if it turned out that the Informant had really done it. He doubted Izaya would admit to killing Shizuo, but he'd known the man for a very long time and he hoped to be able to tell whether or not Izaya had done it.

Sighing softly, Izaya raised his head and looked Simon straight in the eyes. "What do you think?" The answer came in the form of a fist, impacting the left side of Izaya's face with enough force to send him flying into the wall. It hurt a lot more than the last time and Izaya was struggling to breathe now that the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He collapsed on the floor, clutching his chest and gasping while Simon crouched in front of him.

"Don't come here again," Simon said, grasping Izaya's chin to look into pained red eyes.

Izaya tore himself away from Simon's fingers and slowly got up, throwing the man an amused look before heading in the direction of the back exit. Once there, he pressed the handle but stopped and turned to Simon who was looking extremely dangerous for a man who disliked violence. "You all think I'm evil, but none of you have seen the real Heiwajima Shizuo," Izaya spoke in a strained voice, holding tightly onto the handle since he was still somewhat dizzy from the punch. "Anyway, прощайте," he said and walked out of the store, hissing in pain a few moments later when he gingerly touched the back of his head and felt a bit of blood.

***

Izaya went to Sakamoto as soon as he arrived at the hospital, the doctor sighing and then motioning for him to sit down.

"Who did you piss off this time?" the man asked as he proceeded to clean the head wound after assessing the damage even though he wanted to throttle Izaya for what he'd done to Shizuo. He might've been Shizuo and Izaya's acquaintance, but he was also a doctor and he would do his duty no matter what.

"Simon seemed to be in a bad mood," Izaya answered, shrugging. "I only wanted to eat some fatty tuna."

"You never only want something," Sakamoto remarked, pressing the gauze a bit too hard on the wound he was cleaning.

Izaya hissed in pain and glared at the man but chose to remain silent since he knew this was about Shizuo and he wanted Sakamoto to be the one to start the discussion.

"It doesn't look like you'll need stitches," Sakamoto said and threw the gauze in the garbage bin along with the gloves. He then folded his arms in front of his chest and narrowed his eyes, silently watching Izaya who was putting on his jacket. "Shizuo," he uttered the name to get Izaya's attention.

"What about Shizu-chan?" Izaya asked in an innocent voice, slightly tilting his head to the side.

Sakamoto's expression twisted into one of anger. "Kasuka swears you're the one who stabbed him and left him to die."

"So he really died, huh?"

"You should know," Sakamoto snarled, fisting both hands into Izaya's T-shirt, "since you're the one who stabbed him. I've seen the injuries caused by your switchblade too many times before to not recognize them right away."

Izaya was about to wrap his hands around Sakamoto's wrists so that he could push him away but the man released his hold on the black T-shirt and angrily marched to the window, now facing the outside view.

"I know you hated Shizuo, but did you have to go that far?" Sakamoto hissed, slamming his fist on the window's sill. "Kasuka was crushed when I talked to him yesterday." The silence then stretched for more than a minute before Sakamoto spoke again. "You know what? Get the hell out of here!" he growled, turning angry eyes towards Izaya who was just standing there with his hands inside the pockets of his jacket.

"Whatever happened to him was not my fault, whether you believe me or not," Izaya stated in what he hoped was a sincere voice.

"Get out!"

"Can I at least say good bye to Shizu-chan?" he asked but immediately turned and walked out the door when Sakamoto picked up a scalpel. Nothing seemed to be going his way and as much as he hated having to involve anyone in this, he was starting to seriously consider having Onishi hack into the hospital's records.

***

He was on his way to the train station, trying to not get annoyed by the strange looks he was receiving or the murmuring he could hear whenever some people passed him by, when he heard a familiar neigh coming from somewhere behind him. He turned around, barely managing to dodge the incoming scythe wielded by what appeared to be a murderous Dullahan. There were numerous black shadows spilling from beneath her helmet and Izaya did the only thing one could do in his situation: he ran.

He dashed right into the street, miraculously avoiding the speeding cars and getting enough of a head start to hopefully lose Celty who was on her bike and was having a much harder time crossing the street. He then turned right and ran into a store, knowing the place had a back exit which he could use to put even more distance between himself and the seething Dullahan who, judging by the sounds of screaming customers, was not that far behind him. As soon as he was out the door he pushed the garbage bin to block the exit and ran, not even stopping to look behind him when he heard the loud noise of what appeared to be Celty trying to make her way out of there.

Orihara Izaya wasn't one to get scared easily, but he had a feeling that he might really get killed if Celty were to get her hands on him. He was still in pain because of how hard his body had hit the wall back at Russia Sushi―courtesy of Simon―but the fear of death was higher than any pain his body was in so he pushed himself to go faster, disliking the idea of getting killed after finally getting rid of the moronic beast.

Izaya could hear the neigh behind him again so he jumped on top of a stand and then leaped over the fence, falling on his hands and knees and hurting his ankle enough to feel strong pain but not enough to slow him down when the incarnation of death was right behind him. He crawled until he managed to stand up, turning his head and looking back just as Shooter flew over the fence and landed right behind him, Celty swinging her scythe and barely missing Izaya's head who ducked just in time.

He then rolled on the ground and got up to his feet again, doing his best to avoid getting slashed by the raging monster now causing a commotion outside of a restaurant. There were people running and screaming and Izaya was flipping tables, chairs and anything else he could find in his path to slow down the enraged Dullahan.

The sounds of the sirens weren't close enough and Izaya was starting to wonder if he'll be able to get away with his life when he felt the scythe slice his body for the first time. It hurt so much that he almost fainted, but the weapon didn't actually cut him and he clung to consciousness, forcing his body to keep moving even though he could barely stand. The scythe descended upon him again and this time he screamed, tripping and falling face-first on concrete while Celty continued to slice him until the only sounds he could hear were his own cries of pain before he descended into unconsciousness.

Next to the fallen figure stood Celty, hands tightly clenched around the weapon she'd just used to torture Izaya. She was still seeing red but the sounds of the police getting closer woke her up from her madness enough to make her realize what she'd just done. She still wanted to kill Izaya but at the same time she was feeling horribly guilty so she wrapped him in her shadows, placed him on the bike and rode out of there just as the police arrived at the scene. She was hoping to lose them quickly but her hopes ended up getting shattered when she spotted Kinnosuke Kuzuhara on her tail, the man's presence meaning that it would be a very long chase.

Kinnosuke seemed to be dead set on catching the elusive prey that was the headless rider and Celty was unable to lose him no matter how hard she was trying. The fact that she had Izaya with her made things harder but she couldn't just throw him off the bike after trying to kill him no matter how upset she was at the murderous bastard.

And she was upset, and angry, and a million other things she couldn't name, torn between her hatred for Izaya and the knowledge of why he'd done it. She could still remember how utterly broken he looked back when Shinra had called her to Izaya's apartment, as well as the blood trail leading to the bathroom and the red water in the bathtub. She also remembered the too human Izaya she'd seen after his fight with Shinra, just sitting down in front of their apartment building and looking like he was yearning for human interaction even though he'd told Shinra he never wanted to have anything to do with him again.

Her world had been thrown upside down and she didn't know what to do, but her priority was to get rid of Kinnosuke so she rode towards a bridge from where she jumped down knowing that no human could follow her right away. The police cars and bikes went straight ahead to find a way down, but by the time they arrived there, Celty was long gone.

***

The first thing that registered in Izaya's mind when he woke up was that he was cold, and he soon found the reason as to why that was when he opened his eyes and realized that he was somewhere on the ground. He tried to move but his hands were tied behind his back with something even colder than the concrete below and he briefly panicked until he caught sight of Celty's sitting on Shooter. He then looked around―as much as he could from his spot on the ground while his whole body still hurt―before he turned to Celty again, the corners of his lips now curled into a disturbing smile. "Am I correct in assuming that my execution is going to take place here?"

Celty typed something on her PDA before standing up and making her way to Izaya. [We're here because I'm hiding from the police.]

Izaya blinked in surprise a couple of times and then pushed his upper body up so that he was now sitting on the ground with his legs crossed. His hands were still tied behind his back but he knew there was nothing he could do about that since Celty's black shadows were very strong. "So you're not going to kill me?" he asked, sounding almost surprised.

Slender fingers tightened around the PDA while Celty typed her reply. [No.]

"You seemed pretty determined earlier," he remarked, his eyes darting around the place as he tried to figure out where they were.

[You killed Shizuo!!!!!]  she wrote angrily on her PDA, the device almost breaking in her hand with how hard she was squeezing it.

Izaya sighed loudly. "Why does everyone keep blaming me? I was nowhere near Shizu-chan when he died."

[I don't believe that!]

"I was in the park, playing Chess with a man called Mori Ken," Izaya spoke in a calm tone, now certain that Celty wouldn't kill him. "There were many other witnesses too. You can go ask them yourself if you don't believe me."

Celty was taken aback by the answer, but she quickly recovered and shoved the PDA into Izaya's face after angrily hitting the keys she needed to type her reply. [That doesn't mean a thing! You could've hired anyone to do it!]

"Believe what you will, but the fact still remains that I didn't do it and you can't prove I did it no matter how much you wish otherwise."

[I don't believe you! You killed him for what he did to you!] She immediately regretted her comment though when Izaya's expression went dark and he looked much too human again.

"Are you going to kill me or am I free to go?" he asked in a flat tone, not even raising his head to look at her. He was in a bad mood and he no longer wanted to deal with the crazy Dullahan who had nearly killed him. Seeing how Celty wasn't typing anything, he continued. "You know, I'm not the only enemy Shizu-chan had. Food for thought, ne? No need to thank me."

Celty was almost certain that Izaya had been the one to kill Shizuo but she couldn't end the Informant's life no matter how much she would've loved to do it. Besides, after doing what he did, Shizuo was not that much better than the red-eyed bastard still sitting on the dirty ground. It seemed that both were just as horrible and no matter how much she cared about Shizuo, she was still very much appalled by the blond's actions. Without another word, she untied Izaya, got on her bike and rode out of there, deciding it was best to put some distance between herself and the Informant before she ended up slicing him for real.

Chapter 61: Different Sense

A heartbroken Celty, sitting in the chair next to the bed with her legs drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them while her shoulders shook with how hard she was crying was a sight that Shinra had been expecting and at the same time one he wished he would've never had to witness. He'd known this would happen before he even told Izaya which bottle to take from the cabinet, and yet nothing in the world could’ve prepared him for the pain he was experiencing as he watched his beloved mourn the death of her best friend.

The guilt at having been partially responsible for making her cry was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes and he was already regretting having helped Izaya even though he still believed that in the grand scheme of things he'd done the right thing. It was the only way to keep Celty safe from a bloodthirsty Izaya who would've used anyone to hurt Shizuo, even if that someone happened to be the woman his best friend loved.

He didn't know how to comfort her, not when he couldn't even properly take her in his arms. The only thing he could think of that would make Celty momentarily feel better would be for her to either find proof that Izaya had done it and hand it over to the police or for her to kill him, but his Celty was much too gentle to commit murder; which was ironic, considering what Celty used to be before coming to Tokyo. There was also the issue of what Shizuo had done and Shinra believed that deep down inside, Celty couldn't blame Izaya for wanting to make Shizuo pay, especially after having seen some of the damage the blond had inflicted on Izaya.

"I don't think Shizuo would want you to cry for him," Shinra tried, but his attempt at making her feel better only made her shoulders shake harder. He cursed under his breath and went back to being as silent, the irony of it being that he could almost hear the sounds of her sorrowful cries even though she wasn't making any. There would never be any sounds as long as her head was in a jar somewhere inside Izaya's apartment instead of on her shoulders or in her hands where he knew it should be. She can never know.

"Hey, come here," he spoke softly as he raised the arm that Shizuo had broken and clumsily patted the bed. Celty however was not moving and Shinra sighed, disappointed in himself for being so pathetic that he couldn't even convince the woman he loved to lie down next to him. "Please," he tried again, but there was still no answer and he decided it was best not to bother her when she was like that. Damn you, Izaya.

Shinra was just thinking how much he wanted to punch the bastard in the face when Celty unwrapped her arms from around her knees, lowered her feet on the floor, stood up and slowly made her way to him, carefully lying down so that she wouldn't aggravate the injuries he had received from a certain sadistic bastard that Shinra dreamed of one day catching and using as test subject for one of his experiments. As much fun as it was to think about such things, he pushed those ideas to the back of his mind when Celty gently caressed his cheek and he felt his heart swell, the thing threatening to burst with how fast it was beating for the woman he loved more than anything and anyone in the world.

Even with his elbow broken, he could still move his fingers a bit, so he squeezed her arm and sighed softly, "I love you," the words flew out of his mouth before he even realized how inappropriate it was to talk about such things when his darling was crying for her friend, but he didn't regret having said it since it was the truth. Surprisingly enough, Celty didn't punch him in the face for being an insensitive asshole, so he continued. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

Celty pulled out the PDA from inside her sleeve. [I couldn't kill him. I tried to, but I couldn't,] she typed the words and showed them to Shinra, paying attention to his expression to see if there was any sign of anger. Surprisingly enough, there was none. It made her think that perhaps she had overestimated how much Shinra cared about Izaya.

"Of course you couldn't. My darling Celty is too kind to murder someone in cold blood," Shinra spoke lovingly as he clumsily moved his arm so that it was now somewhat resting around her waist. He was curious to know more about her encounter with Izaya, but he dared not ask.

[He's fine,] Celty answered as if guessing his unspoken question. [I used my scythe on him, but I didn't actually cut him even though I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!]

"No, you don't," Shinra contradicted her. "You're too good for that."

[I wanted him to pay but then I remembered what Shizuo did and I...]

"..."

[Izaya told me that he wasn't the only enemy Shizuo had, but I doubt anyone else could've gotten close enough to stab him.]

"If Izaya is the one who killed him, I'm sure the police will find some evidence against him, especially when they want to look good for catching the person who had killed Hanejima Yuuhei's brother," Shinra tried to assure her even though he didn't believe a word coming out of his own mouth. A plan concocted by Izaya would be nothing less than infallible; most of the times anyway.

[I hope so,] was Celty's reply before she placed the PDA on the bed and allowed herself to melt into Shinra's clumsy yet warm embrace. It felt as though she had no energy left to even move her fingers and with Shizuo gone, the only other person she'd ever gotten close to was Shinra, poor injured Shinra who couldn't even properly hold her in his arms because she hadn't been there to protect him.

Useless, she berated herself and she stiffened, the guilt at having failed the person she cared about the most squeezing her heart in a vice-grip. Shizuo too, that same voice added but for this one she didn't know what exactly she felt guilty about only that the guilt was there despite her disgust towards her friend's actions. Maybe if she'd been there for him and talked to him more often about what was bothering him then perhaps Shizuo's anger wouldn't have exploded into a fit of blind rage.

Celty was just about drowning in guilt when she heard Shinra's voice and she jerked in surprise, only then noticing that her shadows had spilled out of her neck and encompassed both their bodied in a protective manner. [I'm sorry, I... I don't know what happened,] she typed after picking up the PDA.

"It's fine," Shinra assured her as he tightened his hold as much as his broken limb allowed it. "Don't worry about it. Besides, I love it when my darling is touching me all over~ Ouch!" he cried out in pain when Celty jabbed him in the stomach.

[I'm so sorry!] Celty immediately apologized when she saw Shinra's face scrunched up in agony and she realized what she'd just done. She continued to hold the PDA above Shinra's face, waiting for him to open his eyes and read the text because she didn't want him to think that she didn't care about him.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Shinra cracked one eye open, but his forced smile didn't seem to fool her in the least judging by how she was trembling beneath his fingers. "'m okay," he squeezed the words between tightly clenched teeth. It still hurt but Shinra didn't want her to feel guilty about it, especially when he knew that his beloved would never hurt him on purpose when he was this injured.

[I didn't mean to! I just... I don't know what happened!]

"I'll gladly take anything Celty gives me, punches included!" Shinra chirped happily.

[Idiot!]

Shinra felt they needed to change the subject and this seemed a good a time as any. "Can you bring me my phone?"

[I'll be right back,] Celty told him as she carefully got up.

"Thank you."

***

Izaya was just about finished cleaning the cuts and scrapes he'd gotten after his run-in with the crazy Dullahan when he received a message from Shinra. Reluctantly, he opened it and was surprised to see that Shinra was asking if he was okay instead of raging at him for having upset Celty.

「Nothing is broken, if that's what you're asking,」 he typed and sent the message.

《Good, because I can't treat your injuries when I'm stuck in bed.》

「How are you even able to type...?」

《With the power of my brilliant mind~》

Izaya snorted, deciding not to reply to that. Not even two minutes later he received a new message.

《Shizuo didn't break my fingers.》

Since they were on the subject of Shizuo... 「Aren't you mad at me?」

《I was prepared for the consequences when I told you which bottle to take.》

Izaya released the breath he didn't even know he was holding. 「How's Celty doing?」

《She hates you more than ever, but I don't think she'll come after you again.》

「I hope so.」

《You should get away from Ikebukuro for a while until things calm down.》

Frowning, Izaya leaned against the wall.「I can't. The police officer investigating the case told me not to leave the city.」

《Then come over sometimes when Celty's not home.》

Izaya smiled as he typed. 「Sounds good.」

Seeing as how he got no reply to his last message after a few minutes of waiting, Izaya pocketed the phone and proceeded to bandage the hand he'd scrapped pretty badly along the ground when he fell earlier that day while trying to escape the murderous Dullahan. At least Shinra was still talking to him and that was more than he could ask for.

His body was still feeling the aftereffects of having been sliced by a shadow scythe and because of that he kept hissing whenever pain shot through his nerves like lightning. He wasn't complaining though, considering how easily he'd gotten off after angering what one would consider a darkly-inclined fairy.

He was just about ready to go to sleep when Shizuo's picture appeared on the news and the reporter was talking about how Hanejima's Yuuhei's brother had been murdered. They also showed footage of the reporter trying to talk to Kasuka but the actor refused to answer any questions and instead got into his car and drove away. Izaya couldn't help but wonder if that broken expression on the freak's face was real or if Kasuka was faking it. He had no doubts that Kasuka was upset, but if the man was as emotionless as he claimed to be, then even if it was Shizuo, he would be incapable of feeling deep sorrow.

They didn't talk much about Shizuo, but Izaya had a feeling that the reporters wouldn't stop before finding out everything there was to know about Hanejima Yuuhei's brother. The next few days would not be easy on Kasuka and Izaya was looking forward to seeing the freak trying to defend the memory of his brother. Kasuka would surely try, but Izaya knew just how vicious humans could be and how in the end the freak would fail and everyone would reach the conclusion that Heiwajima Shizuo was nothing but a monster.

***

Izaya spent the next few days inside, watching TV or browsing the Internet for anything related to Shizuo's death. Some people seemed to be sad about it and feeling sorry for Kasuka while others were saying stuff like the actor should be relieved that his brother was dead because Heiwajima Shizuo was nothing more than a monster anyway. Those messages most likely came from the many people Shizuo beat up over the years and Izaya couldn't help but snigger every time he read one of those.

And yet there were times when he would feel something in his chest tighten for reasons he couldn't, didn't want to comprehend, and then he would feel a sliver of something that made him wish he could revive Shizuo so that he could punch the stupid monster in the face for being a moron and screwing everything up. Their games weren't supposed to end like that.

Other times, Izaya would pace around the living room, berating himself for giving Shizuo such an easy death when the monster deserved a far worse dispatch into the netherworld than what he'd received. It was during such moments that he had this urge to go out and get into random fights so that he would have a reason to cut someone now that Ikebukuro's monster was no longer out there.

The worst thing however was that feeling of utter shame he would sometimes experience when looking back at all the things he'd said and done in the name of revenge. It didn't even matter that Shizuo was dead and that the monster of his nightmares would never be able to tell a single soul. Those memories still existed in Izaya's mind, seared into his brain until the day he would die, or doomed to remain there forever in case he would somehow find a way to achieve immortality.

The fact that he was having nightmares of Shizuo and sometimes of Slon trying to get him for ending their lives wasn't helping either. The ones with Slon were bad, but the ones with Shizuo were terrifying. They felt so real that sometimes Izaya would need a few good minutes just to pull himself together after waking up. It was always the same, with Shizuo showing up out of nowhere and Izaya running from the enraged beast, Ikebukuro's monster chasing after him until Izaya could go no further and Shizuo would catch him. The pain would start then and the nightmare would only end with Izaya giving his last gurgled breath while begging for forgiveness.

Once fully awake he would numbly lie in bed, trying to chase away that feeling he refused to even name. But it was there and it was frustrating and annoying that he would feel guilty something for killing a monster. Why would he? It made no sense. What if Shizuo had bleed just like a human and then died like one? Shizuo was not human. Shizuo was a monster, a beast, a stupid brute deserving of death.

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! he berated himself after one such nightmare. Still trembling, he got up and headed downstairs, knowing that he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. He was drinking more and more coffee but at least it kept him up most of the time and that was a good enough temporary solution until the nightmares would go away and he would be able to move on with his life.

Online, many people were still blaming him for Shizuo's murder but no one could prove anything and Izaya doubted they ever would. Onishi and Roppi would never talk―they knew better than to fuck with him―and without any evidence to tie him to the crime, Izaya was as free as a bird even though he still couldn't yet leave the city. Not that he wanted to anyway. Tokyo was where he lived and did his business and he had no intention of running away after finally getting rid of the dumb brute always chasing him out of Ikebukuro.

***

Izaya was on his way to meeting up with Shiki when he caught sight of Kadota out of the corner of his eye. Curious to know how his old schoolmate felt about the whole Shizuo thing, he crossed the street and headed in his direction.

"Dotachin, long time no see!" Izaya chirped happily.

"Hey," Kadota grumpily greeted him back. "How are things?" he then continued in a calmer tone, hoping that his irritation wasn't that obvious since he didn't want to give Izaya the satisfaction. He hated that nickname just as much as he did the first time he'd heard it.

Izaya shrugged. "As well as they can be given the situation." Seeing how Kadota wasn't saying anything and how the silence was starting to become uncomfortable, Izaya continued. "I'm surprised you're not accusing me of killing Shizu-chan, considering everyone else is."

"The only ones who know what really happened are you and Shizuo, but he's no longer here to tell anyone anything and I doubt you'd ever admit to killing him even if you're the culprit," Kadota remarked. He'd known both of them for many years but unlike everyone else, he wasn't quick to point the finger.

"IZA-IZA!" ARE YOU OKAY?" came a screeching voice from somewhere on their right.

Izaya flinched and had the urge to run away but he kept his ground because there was no fucking way he was going to get chased out of there, by Erika nonetheless. The woman had to have a few screws loose because it looked like she'd forgotten how he'd burned her entire manga and DVD stack.

"I keep saying there's no way that Iza-Iza would ever kill Shizu-Shizu, but no one believes me!" she complained in a whiny voice while sniffling and wiping away the tears threatening to fall out of the corners of her eyes. Izaya snorted at her comment and threw her a disgusted look, but Erika slowly approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder before leaning in and whispering in his ear. "But if it turns out that you killed my OTP, well…" Erika didn't think she needed to continue the sentence for Izaya to get the message.

Izaya returned her threat with a disturbing smile that promised equal if not worse suffering if she didn't back off already. "Of course I didn't," he spoke in an offended tone, changing the tune just as easily as Erika who was now standing next to Kadota. "Anyway, I have a business meeting, so if you'll excuse me, I'll be going now."

"I'll see you around," Kadota said and went on his way while Erika continued to stare at Izaya as the man crossed the street and disappeared into a crowd of people.

***

Sawazaki Kotaro was having a hard time with this case. His Chief had told him to find the culprit in Heiwajima Shizuo's case as soon as possible but the only thing he found was one dead end after another. Besides people talking about the hatred between the two former schoolmates and their numerous threats regarding each other's lives, there was nothing to tie Izaya to the crime no matter how much Hanejima Yuuhei wished otherwise. "I'm sorry, but we haven't been able to find the knife used in the stabbing nor anyone who might've done it."

"Izaya did it," Kasuka stated for what felt like the millionth time that week.

"Orihara Izaya was in the park at the time your brother was stabbed," Sawazaki tried to make him understand, because the last thing he needed was for Hanejima Yuuhei to go complaining to the Chief of Police that the officer in charge of the case wasn't doing his job.

Kasuka placed both elbows on his thighs, eyes narrowing infinitesimally as he rested his chin on the back of his interlaced fingers. "That wasn't Izaya."

"There are numerous people attesting to the man's presence there," Sawazaki insisted.

"No one else could've gotten close enough to Shizuo to stab him."

Irritated by the discussion and by the man's stubbornness, Sawazaki promised to do his best to catch the culprit before leaving Kasuka's apartment and going back to work on the case.

"He doesn't believe you," Ruri remarked as she sat down next to Kasuka on the couch.

Kasuka's hand went around Ruri and he pulled her closer to him, her head now resting on his chest. "That's because he doesn't know what Izaya is capable of; but you do."

Ruri nodded. "Are you going there tonight as well?"

"Yes."

***

"What is this about that you couldn't tell me over the phone?" Izaya asked Shiki after being invited to sit down inside the man's office.

Shiki took a drag from the cigarette and motioned for everyone else to get out. "It's about Yamashita Rikuto."

Izaya's tilted his head to the side, looking confused. "What about him?"

"The guy's brother seems extremely unhappy with what we did to Rikuto, and now he's looking for retribution. Word on the street is that he might be coming for you first," Shiki told him so that Izaya could watch himself. The man was important for their group and he couldn't afford to lose their best Informant.

Izaya gave Shiki an amused look. "Shiki-san doesn't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself."

Shiki returned the amused look with one of his own. "It's not wise to underestimate others. Besides, the last thing you need right now is to cause waves, with Heiwajima Shizuo being dead and everyone saying how you're the one who did it."

"I'll be fine," Izaya assured the man. "And besides, I have nothing to do with Shizu-chan's death."

"I hope so, because you still have work to do, and I would be extremely unhappy if you got arrested," Shiki said, his tone almost sounding threatening but not quite. "Should I send one of my men to make sure you're safe until we catch the guy?"

Laughing, Izaya stood up. "No thank you."

"As you wish."

***

Izaya was only a few blocks away from the Awakusu-Kai's headquarters when he got this feeling that he was being followed. His eyes narrowed into slits and he stopped, pretending to check out the clothes showcased in a store's window while he used the reflection to see what was happening behind him. Two men also seemed to stop around the same time, and even though one was pretending to ask for directions from the other, they couldn't fool him.

It seemed that Shiki wasn't being paranoid and Izaya almost laughed at the hilarity of the whole situation because going to see Shiki was what had put him in danger in the first place. Either way, it didn't matter since all he had to do was lose these fools and then find a way to make sure they never bothered him again.

Sighing in slight annoyance, he started walking again, crossing the street and then heading in the direction of the park where he hoped he could lose them. There were four of them following now and Izaya broke into a sprint as soon as he reached the gates, the men behind him pulling out the weapons they'd been hiding until then and chasing after him. Knives and bats didn't really scare Izaya, so he wasn't all that worried and instead continued to run and laugh.

It wasn't the same as Ikebukuro's monster chasing him throughout the streets but it was enough to get his blood pumping. He was almost entertaining the thought of stopping and cutting a bit into them before heading back to Shinjuku, but he didn't want to give the police any reason to arrest him, so in the end he continued running.

It was almost like the good ol' times, except that it wasn't and that those times were anything but good. These four men―make that five now―were not Shizuo.

Luckily, an inner voice provided. After all, Shizu-chan is nothing more than dust now.

Notes:

Shizuo's fate will be revealed next chapter~

Chapter 62: Ghost of Perdition

Izaya woke up as he was being dragged somewhere out of sight by two of the men who had been chasing him through the park. There was wetness at the back of his head, blood, and quite a lot of it, but what bothered him more than the dangerous situation he found himself in was the pain in the arm that Shizuo had grabbed. No, not Shizuo, but a Shizuo, because that couldn't have been the monster he knew. He might've dreamed it or imagined it―possible, considering he'd been hit in the head―but then why did his arm hurt?

There was also this nagging, almost suffocating suspicion that Shizuo was not dead. After all, why wasn't there a grave? Kasuka had presumably cremated him, but could Izaya be sure of that? The more he thought about it, the more suspicious the whole thing seemed. Kasuka promised him that he wouldn't get away with it, and yet the freak hadn't done anything in particular to make sure that Izaya paid for his crime. Now that he thought about it, Izaya realized that Kasuka was being eerily silent for someone whose brother had just been killed.

"Oi, I think he's awake," one of the men remarked before elbowing Izaya in the face hard enough to almost send him back into unconsciousness, his action making the others laugh.

Izaya's nose was bleeding now and his red eyes were scrunched up in agony but he refrained from struggling or trying to fight back since there were three more men besides the two dragging him. Leaving aside the fact that he was weaponless, it was hard for Izaya to focus when the world around him still seemed to be spinning and he doubted that he could take all five of them on in a fight and make a successful escape. He'd most likely get beaten to death before he'd even be able to take down two of them, which meant that he'd have to catch them by surprise somehow.

As fate has it, luck seemed to be on his side for once. They were still on the way to wherever they were taking him when the five men suddenly stopped. Confused, Izaya raised his head to see what it was all about, only for his eyes to fall on this kid on a bike who looked no older than sixteen and who was blocking their way while smiling. The luck part had to do with the fact that the kid wore a jacket with a skeletal dragon design on it.

"The hell you want kid?" one of the men asked as he flicked open a switchblade.

What came next was something that Izaya wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own two eyes. The kid wearing brass knuckles got off the bike and charged forward, breaking noses and teeth before two of the men even knew what hit them; they had simply been unable to keep up with their opponent who was much smaller and faster than they were.

The men holding him released him, now focused on the new arrival, and Izaya used the wall they had been walking next to for support since he was still pretty dizzy. Somehow, that made watching the fight that much more fascinating for some reason. This kid, whoever he was, looked more like a sadist as he hit and hit and hit, eyes sparkling and lips set into a disturbing smile as he painted those brass knuckled fists red with the blood of his enemies. It was only after the five men had stopped fighting and were moaning in pain and twitching on the ground that the kid turned to him.

"Orihara-san, are you okay?" the obviously sadistic kid asked, rushing to Izaya's side and grabbing him by the arm to support him.

"'m fine," Izaya assured him as he moved away, indicating that he didn't need help. "Who're you?"

"Ayato," the kid answered cheerfully.

"Thanks for your help."

"I don't need your thanks," Ayato replied, still smiling.

"Oh? Then what do you want?"

"Money, obviously! I should get a reward for helping you."

Izaya raised his arm and placed it around Ayato's shoulders. "You know what, kid? Let's make a deal. I'll hire you for today or longer if necessary, and in return for your services, you get a lot of money."

"How much is a lot?" Ayato chirped excitedly.

"Enough to buy whatever you need for your bike," Izaya assured him.

The kid nodded frantically. "Deal! What do you need me to do?" he asked as he sat on the bike.

"For now, just go wherever I tell you to go," Izaya said as he picked up one of the thug's switchblades and got on the bike as well.

***

"Orihara-san, shouldn't you go to a hospital?" Ayato asked but got no answer. "Orihara-san!" he tried again, louder this time.

Confused red eyes turned to light brown ones. "What?"

"I said, shouldn't you go to a hospital?"

Izaya waved a dismissive hand and went back to watching Kasuka's apartment building.

"What if you bleed to death? I won't get my money then," Ayato whined and stomped his foot on the ground like a little kid. "At least put this on the wound to slow down the bleeding!" he urged him as he handed the older male a clean piece of cloth that he kept around for emergencies.

"This is nothing," Izaya assured him, grabbing the thing and pressing it against the back of his head without even taking his eyes off the building. "I've had far worse injuries."

Ayato folded his arms in front of his chest and puffed angrily through his nose. "But what if you die anyway?"

Sighing, Izaya pulled out his phone. "What's your account number? I'll give you half now and half when we're done."

Now happy that he would get his money, Ayato gave Izaya the number and waited for the man to deposit the cash.

"I hope that's enough," Izaya sighed softly as he pocketed the phone.

Ayato's eyes widened in surprise and he could barely contain his joy at having received so much for doing so little. "Yes, thank you!"

With that out of the way, Izaya went back to watching the building. The kid kept trying to talk to him about random stuff, but Izaya had more important things on his mind than to entertain a sadist. His right hand went to his left arm and he grit his teeth at the pain, almost too afraid to know for a fact if there really was a bruise there in the form of a palm and if it was just the right size and shape to be Shizuo's. It was terrifying no matter how he looked at it.

It was only when the sun was about to set that Izaya found the courage to pull his arm out of the jacket's sleeve to check if there was really a bruise there or if it was all in his head. He didn't look right away, but when he finally did, he felt his heart come to a stop. It wasn't a dream…? But he couldn't afford to be distracted, so he shook his head, slipped his arm back inside the jacket and went back to watching.

At least Ayato seemed to be texting someone and Izaya was grateful because he didn't have time to entertain a kid who seemed bored out of his mind whenever he wasn't hurting people. The kid was reminding him of Adabashi, except that Ayato didn't seem to be a coward.

"Why are we even here?" Ayato asked all of a sudden, nearly startling Izaya.

"Because I have to make sure of something."

"Of what?"

Izaya's brow twitched in annoyance. "Go back to your texting."

"But―"

"Shh!"

"But your―"

"What?" Izaya snapped.

"You got a message…"

"Oh," Izaya exclaimed as he pulled out his phone. The message was from Shinra.

《 Hiii~ ( ´ ▽ ` ) ﾉ》

「Hi.」

《 Why so cold? ໒ ( •́ ∧ • ̀ ) ७ 》

「I'm busy.」

《 With what? ( ﾟ ο ﾟ人 )) 》

Izaya sighed loudly.「How bored are you?」

《 ( 〃．． ) 》

「Bye!」

《 No, wait! Celty locked herself in her room and she barely comes out anymore! 》

Snorting, Izaya briefly tore his eyes away from the apartment building to write his reply. 「So she's not out there, trying to find evidence that I killed Shizuo?」

《 I doubt she'll even try. It's not like she'd find anything anyway. Besides, it's not like my darling has forgotten what Shizuo did. Plus I think she feels guilty about attacking you. 》

「I find that very hard to believe.」

《 My Celty is gentle! She doesn't like to hurt people, even if they're assholes like you. 》

「Gee, thanks.」

《 Well, it's true. Anyway, what are you doing? 》

Izaya's head turned to Ayato who was sighing again while texting and looking bored out of his mind.「Shouldn't you be consoling your monstrous girlfriend instead of trying to talk to me?」

《 She stopped replying to my messages an hour ago and it's not like I can get out of this damn bed! 》

「I understand your frustration, but I don't have time for this right now.」

Seeing how he got no message after that, Shinra was clearly mad at him, but Izaya couldn't be bothered to care when there was the possibility of Shizuo being alive. Unless he was losing his mind, in which case he would make sure to apologize to Shinra later, even if he disliked the idea of ever apologizing to anyone. But Shinra was Shinra and Izaya would do it for him and him only.

***

It was forty minutes past midnight―after more than half the hyenas reporters had left―when Kasuka drove out of the apartment building's parking lot.

"Follow that car!" Izaya ordered Ayato who was pacing around in utter boredom.

"Got it!" the kid chirped happily as he got on the bike.

"You're not getting the other half if he spots you," Izaya warned.

"That's never gonna happen," Ayato promised. He knew Tokyo's streets like the back of his hand and could easily take alternative routes to avoid being spotted, not to mention that he was keeping a good distance between himself and the car they were following.

Behind him, Izaya was holding tightly onto Ayato who was pretty much speeding because Kasuka was doing the same. The freak was in a rush to get somewhere and Izaya was curious if that somewhere had anything to do with Shizuo. The fact that Kasuka was driving out of Tokyo made Izaya even more suspicious, and by the time that emotionless bastard stopped in front of a hospital in Saitama, Izaya was feeling faint.

Please don't be alive, Izaya kept thinking as he made his way into the hospital while Ayato remained outside. He nearly pushed a nurse out of his way when she tried to take a look at him, fearing that he might lose sight of Kasuka. The only way to know for sure that he wasn't losing his mind was to see who was the person Kasuka was visiting. After the freak got into the elevator, Izaya waited to see where it stopped before going up the stairs. The answer awaited him on the fifth floor.

He stopped out of caution before entering the hallway and that seemed to have been a good idea when he spotted what looked like a bodyguard in front of one of the doors. It looked more and more that Shizuo was alive and Izaya was starting to feel nauseous knowing that the beast might be on the other side of that door. The more he waited the faster his heart beat and the weaker he felt, and the idea of the monster who'd seem him looking so shameful―screaming, crying, bleeding on the ground―still being alive was enough to make him want to dug a deep hole and hide into it. But not before making sure you die this time around, beast!

After all the things he'd confessed to Shizuo before killing him, and after the kiss he'd given him so that he could prove to himself that he wasn't afraid even though he was, there was no city, no country, no planet or universe where Shizuo would be allowed to live or exist in as long as Izaya had a saying in it.

Kasuka walked out of the room with a doctor and Izaya tightened his fingers around the switchblade he was going to use to stab Shizuo right in that monstrous heart of his.  And then maybe slit his throat too, for good measure. Who knew how monsters worked if Shizuo hadn't bled to death when he was supposed to do just that? He could take on the bodyguard, probably. But the guy was big and Izaya wasn't exactly at full strength when his head was still bleeding and his hands were shaking. Perhaps he could ask Ayato to―

No! He wasn't going to involve strangers into this. It was bad enough that he'd hired a kid he'd barely met to follow Kasuka, even though technically the Dragon Zombie gang already worked for him. This time he would have to take care of everything by himself. After taking a few deep breaths to calm down―it wasn't working though―he pulled out the switchblade, flicked it open and walked into the hallway, hiding it behind his back while making his way towards the bodyguard. The man would surely think that he was a patient since he was bleeding, so all he had to do was stab the guy somewhere. But wait! If he didn't kill the guy then the man could identify him and then he'd be arrested. The other option was to―

He never got to finish that thought though because he was suddenly being grabbed from behind and dragged into the bathroom, struggling and kicking while the man kept him in a chokehold. There was a hand around his wrist so that he couldn't attack with the switchblade and Izaya was starting to panic at the loss of control.

"Izaya, calm down," the man said, and it took the man repeating the words a few more times before Izaya finally recognized the voice.

"Let go," Izaya hissed in a weak voice. Slowly, the arm from around his neck loosened its hold but he wasn't fully released and instead he was pushed into the wall, Kasuka working on taking the switchblade out of stiff fingers while at the same time keeping Izaya pinned there. "Let go, freak," Izaya repeated and tried to push himself away from the wall, but it didn't look like Kasuka was going to let him go.

"I can't," Kasuka spoke calmly after finally prying the switchblade out of Izaya's fingers.

"Why? Because Shizu-chan is in that room?" Izaya hissed, a wild look in his eyes as he bared his teeth.

"Yes," was Kasuka's answer, and Izaya knew his pulse must've picked up because the world around him was spinning again and he was having a hard time breathing. He could've sworn he heard someone whimper but it was hard to tell with how fast his heart was beating and there was no one there besides the two of them. It couldn't have been him―

The body pressing him into the wall moved away suddenly and his legs gave out from under him, his knees too weak to support his weight when all Izaya could think was, no no no, Shizu-chan can't be alive, please don't be alive, please―

Next he felt a cold palm on his forehead and then on his neck but he couldn't tell the freak to fuck off when he felt as though all the energy had seeped out of his body. Why wasn't Kasuka trying to choke him to death anyway? He'd just tried to kill Shizuo for like the… what time was it anyway? It didn't matter. Shizuo was alive and Izaya himself was nothing more than the pathetic guy who'd cried, screamed and broken to pieces at the hands of a monster.

"Let's go someplace else," Kasuka suggested and picked up a boneless Izaya off the floor, slinging one of the man's arms around his shoulders and then leading him out towards the staircase where he hoped they wouldn't be bothered. Once there he helped Izaya sit down at the top stairs while he took a seat next to him.

"Why is Shizu-chan not dead?" Izaya asked weakly, right shoulder and head resting against the wall. "He should've died, he should've―"

"I don't know," Kasuka interrupted him. "Someone dumped him at the hospital, but no one remembers who."

"But I told Shizu-chan things and he…" Izaya started again, voice trembling. "He should be dead. He needs to die. I can't let him live, I have to―"

"Please…"

Izaya thought he hadn't heard right, because there was no way that Kasuka would ever say something like that. Wide wet eyes turned in Kasuka's direction and he looked at the freak, still wondering if it had been his imagination.

"Please don't go after him anymore," Kasuka continued, ready to get on his knees and beg if that was what it took for Izaya to stop trying to kill Shizuo. "I know that what he did to you was horrible, I know, but he's my brother and I can't abandon him. I promised I wouldn't."

Izaya's eyes narrowed into slits and he was suddenly angry again, hand itching for the switchblade that was now in Kasuka's possession. "You lied that he was dead, to everyone!"

"It was the only way to make sure he'd be safe from you."

"You wanted me to get arrested for a murder I didn't even commit!" Izaya raised his tone while his eyes burned with anger.

"Sawazaki was simply looking for the one who stabbed my brother, but I knew he wouldn't find any evidence," Kasuka confessed. "I needed you to be distracted so that I could get Shizuo to safety, though it seems that in the end, I failed."

Izaya had this sudden urge to attack Kasuka and he straightened his back and balled his hands into fists. "Did you laugh with Shizu-chan at my expense? Did he tell you how I… what did he tell you?" As soon as Izaya asked the question he noticed how Kasuka's shoulders drooped and the freak's expression lost some of that indifference that Izaya wanted so badly to wipe off that face because Kasuka looked so much like Shizuo.

"My brother hasn't said anything; he can't."

Izaya's expression morphed into one of confusion while Kasuka rested his head into his palms, looking tired.

"Shizuo is in a coma."

What?

"Please don't go after my brother anymore," Kasuka begged again. "He can't even defend himself as he is now. He may never wake up."

What??

"I know that the only way to stop you would be to kill you, but I can't do that no matter how much I want to keep him safe," Kasuka confessed.

"I have to get out of here," Izaya uttered and pushed himself to his feet before going down the stairs, eyes wide and almost unseeing as he moved on unsteady legs. What was Kasuka saying? Shizuo was a monster, and monsters either died or got better in almost no time at all. Shizu-chan in a coma? Hah! That's not possible!

Or is it..?

Chapter 63: Death Comes Ripping

"I think I finally figured out who we've been following!" Ayato chirped happily when he saw Izaya approach, but the man's dark gaze and the dangerous vibe the Informant was giving off told him that it was best to keep his mouth shut. Something had obviously happened inside the hospital and Ayato wasn't about to anger his employee and risk not getting paid the rest of the money.

"Take me to Ikebukuro," Izaya hissed as he got on the bike, not in the mood to have a conversation with the kid now that he knew the beast was still very much alive. All he could think about was how ridiculous the idea of Shizuo in a coma was. The idiotic protozoan was a monster and monsters didn't break that easily, or at least they weren't supposed to. What if Kasuka lied? It was possible, but somehow Izaya doubted that.

Also, the fact that someone had saved Shizuo deeply unnerved him. The blond couldn't have reached the hospital by himself and he doubted a random person just so happened to pass by that place at the exact right moment to save Shizuo. The only logical conclusion was that someone had followed one of them to that place. But who?

Mysterious savior aside, Izaya was still unsure how to react to the news of Shizuo being in a coma. If the beast wasn't dead, then a comatose Shizuo was the best next thing, but that didn't make it less worrisome since there was always the possibility of Shizuo waking up one day. Unfortunately, he couldn't go back to kill the beast after Kasuka and the bodyguard had seen him. There was also the nurse he'd almost pushed out of his way when he went into the hospital and who knew how many other people had seen his face.

For now he would have to get his bleeding head stitched up and then decide what to do after calming down a bit. He couldn't think clearly when all he could see was red, red and then more red, like the color of Shizuo's blood glinting on his switchblade in the light of the setting sun.

Izaya was just thinking about telling Ayato to head in the direction of Shinra's place when he realized what a terrible idea it would've been. He had a feeling that the doctor wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut and that Shinra would surely tell Celty in order to cheer her up. Shinra's monstrous girlfriend would then most likely message Kasuka and rush to the hospital to make sure that Shizuo was safe. The last thing Izaya needed was more people blocking his way and making it harder for him to kill the beast.

"Take me to the hospital," he told Ayato who simply nodded and sped down the street.

***

After finding the strength to get up, Kasuka made his way to Shizuo’s room where he sat down in the chair by the bed. The sight of his brother lying there hurt was enough to make him want to murder Izaya for trying to kill Shizuo, but at the same time he knew that he couldn’t because he wasn’t a killer and taking another’s life was not a thought he wanted to entertain no matter how much he loved Shizuo.

He’d known that Izaya would find out sooner or later, but he’d hoped that spreading the rumors and asking Sawazaki and Sakamoto to not reveal what had really happened to Shizuo would be enough to keep Izaya away from his brother for a while, at least until Shizuo woke up. There was a voice telling him that his brother might never wake up, but he chose to ignore it and instead he leaned forward and took Shizuo’s hand into his own. “Nii-san, please wake up.” Even though Shizuo’s hand was warm and he was breathing, there was no reply.

Their parents were crushed and Kasuka felt terrible for denying their mother the ardent request of being allowed to see her son. His father had understood why he couldn’t see Shizuo, but Kasuka still felt bad for keeping both of them away from their son. No matter what Shizuo might have thought, their parents loved him and they worried about him.

Why are you here, nii-san? Did you want to die so badly?

***

"And here I was, thinking that my day couldn't get any worse," Sakamoto said as he motioned for Izaya to sit down. "There are other doctors in this hospital."

"But only one of them is my precious friend~" Izaya declared in a singsong voice as he took off his jacket. His head was pounding and he was pissed, but he wasn't about to slice Sakamoto to ribbons for having lied to him about Shizuo. That and the switchblade he’d picked up from one of the thugs had been taken away by Kasuka and he couldn’t slice the doctor to ribbons even if he wanted.

Sakamoto snorted and picked up a piece of gauze, poured disinfectant on it and then proceeded to clean the nasty-looking wound. "How are you even still conscious?"

Izaya's shrugged.

“You already know the drill, so did you exhibit any symptoms indicating that you might not be fine?”

“No. My head hurts because it’s gushing blood, but other than that I’m peachy.”

"And you thought it'd be a good idea to show up here after our last meeting?" Sakamoto asked, frowning.

"Of course~ It's not like Shizu-chan is dead anyway, but you already knew that."

Sakamoto's hand froze in mid-air and the stifling silence stretched for a long time until Izaya's voice, cold and dangerous, shattered it.

“You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t find out, did you?”

Sakamoto sighed heavily before resuming his task of cleaning the wound on Izaya’s head. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out so soon.”

“We don’t always get what we want, do we?” Izaya remarked in a spiteful voice because the only thing on his mind was that he’d wanted Shizuo dead and yet the beast was still very much alive. “How can he even be in a coma?”

“I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to answer your question, so I won’t,” Sakamoto said, frowning, and moved to stitch up the split skin after giving his patient local anesthesia.

Izaya remained silent after that because it wasn’t in his interest to anger Sakamoto when his head was still bleeding. His thoughts were a jumbled mess and he didn’t know what to do next, but he was at least aware that he was in no position to make a good decision before cooling off a bit. Going after the bodyguard like that inside the hospital had been a terrible idea, and even though it wasn’t very often that Orihara Izaya lost his mind, it still happened sometimes.

His wish to leave Shizuo to bleed to death like a dog just as he had bled that night until he found the strength to get up and walk out of that alley turned out to be a mistake, one he did not plan to repeat. Next time he would make sure that the beast’s heart had stopped beating before walking away.

“Okay, I’m done here, so go home and get some rest,” Sakamoto ordered as he placed the needle on the table, took off his gloves and threw them into the trash bin.

Izaya picked up his jacket and put it on before turning to Sakamoto. “I’d still like to know why Shizu-chan is in a coma from a stab wound to the leg.”

“You know an awful lot about where Shizuo had been stabbed for someone who claims he hasn’t stabbed him.”

“Maybe Kasuka told me. We talked earlier. Actually, he was the one who told me that Shizu-chan is in a coma, so now I’m asking you how that happened.”

“Could be that his brain was deprived of oxygen for too long, from the injury he got when he fell or a combination of both. Now get the hell out of here! And next time look for another doctor,” Sakamoto said with a growl as he slammed the door behind the bastard who had tried to kill Shizuo not once but multiple times already.

Izaya glowered at the door for a few moments before tearing his eyes away from it and going down the hallway towards the elevator. Sakamoto didn’t know the real Shizuo; too few people did. Looking back, Izaya realized that perhaps he should’ve whispered Sakamoto’s name to Kasuka before passing out in the bathtub since the man was not as close to him as Shinra was. It would’ve spared Shinra a lot of pain, but at the same time the two of them wouldn’t have gotten closer. Izaya still remembered that Shinra used to treat him rather coldly before that night when Shizuo had left him to die, and as much as he hated to admit, he couldn’t imagine having no one there for him.

The doors to the elevator opened and he mechanically stepped inside and pressed the button. The only thing on his mind was that Shizuo was lying in a hospital bed, completely defenseless, and that it’d be extremely easy for him to end the beast’s life if only he could get past Kasuka and the bodyguard. Luckily, he wasn’t so far gone as to believe that it would be a good idea to go back and try again so soon.

Next time, he told himself as he stepped out of the elevator, next time I won’t make the same mistake again.

***

Ruri’s right hand tightened around her phone as she made her way to the room where she knew Shizuo was lying in a coma.

[I need you.]

It was the message Ruri had gotten from Kasuka in the middle of the night, one that made her rush out of her apartment and head straight to the hospital. Something bad must’ve happened and she feared the worst because Kasuka hadn’t answered his phone no matter how many times she called on her way there.

The bodyguard in front of the door moved out of the way and she entered the hospital room, half-closed eyes looking at Shizuo first to confirm that he was still alive before moving to Kasuka who was sitting in the chair and staring at his brother as though he hadn’t even noticed her presence.

“What’s wrong?” Ruri asked as she moved behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Izaya was here,” Kasuka answered after a few more moments of silence, his eyes still fixed on Shizuo’s unmoving form. “He was going to kill my brother,” he then added as he fished out the switchblade he’d taken from Izaya and raised his hand to show the weapon to Ruri, “with this.”

“It’s a good thing you were here to stop him.”

Kasuka lowered his hand and placed the switchblade on the bed. “No, it’s my fault, I led him here.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ruri tried to argue, but both of them knew that wasn’t true.

“I shouldn’t have come here; I shouldn’t have underestimated Izaya.”

Ruri didn’t say anything. Instead, she sat down on his lap and pulled Kasuka’s head to her chest, placing one hand around his neck and using the other to stroke his hair. “Have you called Sawazaki yet?” Ruri asked and then continued when she got no answer. “Why?”

“I can’t.”

“…”

“There’s more to this than you know.”

Ruri’s hand stilled. “Then tell me,” she said softly, her voice no higher than a whisper.

Kasuka shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

After a few moments of neither of them saying anything, Ruri went back to gently stroking his head. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you think of any way to stop Orihara Izaya from coming after Shizuo-san?”

“Short of killing him? There’s none,” Kasuka answered, his voice losing some of the flat tone and taking on a bitter edge.

Ruri pulled away, grabbed Kasuka’s chin and raised his head so that she could look him in the eyes. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Kasuka wrapped his arms around Ruri’s waist. “Thank you for being here with me.”

***

The next day, Izaya was surprised to find out that Kasuka hadn’t moved Shizuo someplace else. Ayato was kind enough to look into it―after asking for more money of course―and Izaya found himself pacing the living room of his apartment while trying to find a way to get to the beast. There were two men guarding Shizuo now and Ayato said he’d seen a worker install a camera right outside the door. It also looked like Izaya was persona non grata inside the hospital since Ayato had heard two nurses talk about how the guy in the picture taken from one of the CCTV cameras was dangerous and to call the police right away if anyone spotted him anywhere near the place.

Namie was saying something but he wasn’t hearing her, too busy weighing the pros and cons of hiring a few people and raiding the hospital or blowing up the building, a sure way to ensure the beast died once and for all. No, no, no, both ideas were crazy and he was going to stop thinking about insane stuff like that. He wasn’t going to hire criminals to raid the hospital and he wasn’t going to blow up a building just to bring down a comatose beast.

Laughing hysterically at his own train of thought, he picked up his jacket and walked out the door, ignoring Namie who was shouting at him to get back inside and work instead of wasting time like the lazy bastard that he was.

He was debating on whether to take a walk through Shinjuku's streets or go to Ikebukuro but in the end he opted for Ikebukuro and headed towards the train station.

***

“Orihara-kun, are you okay?” Mori Ken asked, concern marring his voice.

“I’m fine, Mori-san. How have you been?” Izaya inquired as he sat down at the table, eyes fixed on the chess board.

“Worried, ever since a police officer showed up here and asked me questions about you,” the man said and moved to extinguish the cigarette, only to be stopped by Izaya.

“It no longer bothers me,” Izaya said, smiling, but the older man put it out anyway. “Passive smoking is not good for your health and I don’t want to be responsible for you getting sick.”

Izaya laughed and proceeded to arrange the chess pieces for a new game. “It’s nice to know you care, Mori-san.”

“May I ask why the police was asking questions about you?”

Izaya sighed softly and raised his head to watch Mori Ken in the eyes after placing all the pieces on the board. “Someone I went to high school with got stabbed; someone with whom I didn’t get along very well.”

“I see, and how do you feel about that?”

Izaya couldn’t help but chuckle as the question reached his ears. “Mori-san, did you study psychology by any chance?”

“No, but my wife did,” Mori Ken confessed as he moved the first piece.

“To answer your question,” Izaya said as he too picked up a piece, “I wish he would’ve bled to death and died, like the animal that he is.”

The last words sounded more like a hiss and Mori Ken couldn’t help but worry about the young man he enjoyed playing chess with. He’d always had a feeling that Izaya was carrying a great suffering and the fact that he would wish for someone’s death meant that person must’ve hurt him somehow.

Realizing what he’d just said, Izaya froze with his fingers on the piece he’d just placed on the board. “You must think I’m a horrible person for wishing someone’s death.”

“It’s not my place to judge. You probably have your reasons to hate him, and besides, I’m no stranger to hating someone enough to wish for their death,” Mori Ken confessed.

Izaya released the chess piece and pulled back his hand, but instead of asking questions that Mori Ken would most likely not want to answer, he chose to remain silent.

They played the rest of the game without exchanging any words until one of them won and they parted ways after wishing the other a good day.

As he left the park, Izaya realized that he wanted to visit Shinra. The problem with that was that Celty might be home and he didn’t want to run into the Dullahan after nearly getting killed by her. Well, there was one way to find out whether or not Celty was home. Fishing out his phone, he wrote Shinra a message.

「I’m in Ikebukuro right now and I was thinking of visiting if your monstrous girlfriend isn’t home.」

《 Don’t insult my beloved! She has to work extra hard to pay our bills because I’m stuck in bed. 》

「Ah, well, if you don’t want me to come over, then I’ll head back to Shinjuku.」

《 I didn’t say that! 》

「Then what are you saying?」

《 I’m saying come over, I’ll be waiting. I’ll message my downstairs neighbor to give you the key. 》

「Alright, I’ll see you in a bit.」

***

“Got lost on the way here?” Shinra mocked, but he was mostly upset that Izaya took his sweet time getting there. He was bored to death after spending so much time in bed and he couldn’t wait for the day when he’d be able to move again.

“It took me a while to find a place where they sold this,” Izaya said as he placed a small carton box on the table.

Shinra watched it curiously, wondering what was inside, as Izaya took a seat and proceeded to take out the contents.

“It’s your favorite food,” Izaya said, chuckling, as he pulled out the plastic storage container and made his way to Shinra who was licking his lips in anticipation.

“It is, but only when the three-five-eight marinated sandfish dish is made by my darling Celty.”

Izaya snorted and moved the plastic container away from Shinra’s nose. “In that case, I’ll eat it myself, since you don’t seem to want it.”

“No, no, I want it,” Shinra assured him, his fingers twitching with the desire to move his arm, grab the thing and stuff his face with it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t when his elbow was broken and his other arm’s radius and ulna were still healing after having been snapped in two. “It’s just that…”

“It’s just that what?” Izaya asked, smirking like a devil as he sat down on the bed next to Shinra and used the chopsticks to pick up a piece of fish. “Open wide~”

A rufescent blush spread across Shinra’s cheeks and he shook his head. “N-No! Only Celty gets to feed me.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Izaya admonished, moving closer and bringing the fish to Shinra’s mouth. The doctor was glaring at him and Izaya let out a long sigh before pulling back his hand. “Just look at it as me returning the favor.”

“What favor?” Shinra asked, still glaring while looking embarrassed.

“You took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself,” Izaya reminded him, but the smile was brittle and it made Shinra’s stomach turn at the memory of a broken Izaya lying in bed and refusing to so much as eat.

Reluctantly, Shinra opened his mouth and accepted the small piece of fish. It didn’t taste as good as when his beloved Celty cooked it but he was grateful nonetheless to Izaya for having thought of bringing him his favorite food, especially when the man wasn’t known to show kindness towards anyone unless it benefited him somehow.

“Thanks, I think I’ve had enough,” Shinra announced around half a dozen bites later.

Izaya smiled. “Okay! I’ll go put this in the fridge then.”

Shinra watched as Izaya left the room and all he could think about until the man came back was that perhaps Shizuo hadn’t suffered enough before dying.

“How’s Celty?” Izaya asked after sitting down in the chair next to the bed.

“Sad…”

“Hey, Shinra…”

“Yes?”

“Something strange happened to me yesterday,” Izaya said in a flat tone as he stared into space. “I think I saw Shizu-chan.”

Shinra shot him a disbelieving look.

“But it wasn’t the Shizu-chan we know and hate,” Izaya then continued, chuckling darkly as he recalled the previous day’s events. “And the weird part is that Shizu-chan once mentioned meeting an Izaya that wasn’t me, in a dream.”

Sighing, Shinra rolled his eyes. “Did you by any chance hit your head yesterday?”

Frowning, Izaya raised a hand and gingerly touched his stitched up head. “As a matter of fact, I did, but it didn’t feel like something I imagined or hallucinated.”

“You need to let Shizuo go.”

Izaya lowered his hand and he turned his head to glower at the doctor who was saying crazy things. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that the two of you have been going at it for far too long and that it’s time you moved on.”

Izaya wanted to tell Shinra to shut the hell up because he didn’t know what he was talking about. In the end, he didn’t, perhaps because a part of him knew Shinra’s words to be true. Shizuo was unfortunately still alive and Izaya had every intention of finishing him off before the beast woke up.

He was about to change the subject when they heard the door and Izaya found himself slightly panicking at the prospect of being cut by Celty’s scythe again.

As expected, the Dullahan entered the room a few moments later and they all froze, staring at each other in tense silence for what felt like forever until Celty pulled out her PDA and walked to Shinra’s bed, completely ignoring Izaya.

[I’m home.]

Seeing that as his chance to get the hell out of there, Izaya gave Shinra an apologetic look and hurried out of the room and then out of the apartment after picking up his jacket and slipping it on. He had no idea if Shinra had ever been cut by that accursed scythe, but he had a feeling that the doctor too would be nervous around the Dullahan if it ever happened to him.

***

Izaya didn’t hurry back to Shinjuku since he felt that he needed some time away from Namie’s nagging to clear up his head and think about his next move. His secretary would leave before it got dark and Izaya didn’t mind waiting an hour before that happened. He sat down on a bench, people-watching until the sun set. It was a hobby he hadn’t indulged himself to in a very long time and it made him realize how much he missed doing other things besides trying to make Shizuo suffer. It was why he needed to get rid of the beast once and for all and hopefully move on like Shinra had suggested.

With Namie out of his apartment, Izaya was looking forward to getting home, so he chose to take the shortest route to the train station which happened to be through a few side streets and alleyways. Halfway there, he had this feeling that someone was following him, so he increased his pace and tried to go back to the main street, but a figure appeared from around the corner in front of him and Izaya stopped, hand flying to his pocket to pull out the switchblade he’d forgotten to pick up from his drawer before leaving the apartment.

“Can I help you with something?” Izaya asked and he couldn’t help but laugh because the whole thing was crazy and he found it hard to believe that someone dressed as Jason―the serial killer from the American movies―would have something against him. “Ah, you’re Hollywood!” Izaya chirped when he remembered hearing about a crazy killer on the news, at the same time trying to sound cool even though on the inside he was starting to panic. He had no weapon while Jason, or Hollywood, whatever, was armed with a cutlass.

Instead of deigning him with an answer, the serial killer raised the weapon and bolted in Izaya’s direction, making the Informant turn around and run the hell out of there as fast as his feet carried him.

Izaya tried to get to a more populated area, but Hollywood, whose speed seemed to surpass his, kept blocking his path and forcing him in the direction of less frequented areas. His heart was beating so fast that he feared it might burst, and unfortunately it seemed that no matter how much effort he put into losing Hollywood, the psycho chasing after him was on a whole new level of terrifying when it came to inhuman speed.

With trembling hands, and without stopping, he pulled out the phone and tried to dial the police, but Hollywood almost succeeded in separating his head from the rest of his body that one second it took to dial the first digit. The cutlass sliced a few strands of hair instead and Izaya let out a pained groan when he was kicked in the stomach and sent tumbling to the ground. He tried to get up while frantically looking around for the phone he’d just dropped, but Hollywood kicked him hard in the face, nearly sending him plummeting into unconsciousness.

Izaya couldn’t remember ever having been hit so hard by anyone who wasn’t Shizuo or Simon, and he hissed and blinked away the tears in his eyes while blood ran down his chin from a split lip. Hollywood was towering over him, as if trying to decide how to kill him, but after being through hell, he wasn’t about to let a psycho killer murder him before finishing off the beast. He would never die as long as Shizuo was still alive. On second thought, it didn’t matter. He simply did not want to die.

Without hesitation, Izaya grabbed Hollywood by the legs and pulled hard, hoping to make the bastard lose his balance and fall. Luckily, that seemed to work―Hollywood was surprisingly small, as if he was a woman, but no, it can’t be―and his suspicion turned out to be true when the hokey mask slipped sideways a bit since the person wearing it was much too small and Izaya caught a glimpse of the one behind it.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though. Hollywood tried to cut him and Izaya had no choice but to release the killer and make a run for his phone. He needed it badly. Now that he had a few seconds head start while Hollywood got up, Izaya looked through his contacts list to find the number he was looking for. He was almost afraid that he couldn’t find it in time, but he did and he pressed the screen hard enough to almost break it with how much adrenaline was pumping through his body.

Hollywood was back to chasing him again and Izaya couldn’t help but shout into the phone when the person he’d called answered. “I didn’t think you’d have the guts to order me killed!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You thought I wouldn’t figure out―” He didn’t get a chance to finish though because he ended up screaming in pain when Hollywood slashed his arm, deep enough to make blood gush out as if it were a fountain.

“What’s going on?”

“Stop acting like you have no idea what’s going on, you goddam freak!” Izaya hissed into the phone as he continued to run. “You sent your girlfriend to kill me!” There were more insults he had for the bastard but Hollywood grabbed him by the hood and pulled him backwards before throwing him into the building. This time Izaya held onto the phone for dear life, not letting go even after hitting the wall and collapsing on the ground, gasping for breath.

Hollywood kicked him in the stomach a couple more times for good measure before crouching next to Izaya, tearing the phone out of stiff fingers and bringing it to her ear.

“What’s happening? Izaya, are you there? Answer me.”

“Orihara Izaya can’t come to the phone right now. He’s bleeding on the ground, awaiting the finishing blow.”

“Ruri…?”

“Yes.”

“You need to stop right now, before it’s too late.”

Ruri raised her foot and used it to crush Izaya’s right wrist under her boot, making the man scream in pain. “It’s already too late. He knows who I am, so he can’t be allowed to live.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s the only way and I have no problem with killing this man for hurting me and your brother. He deserves it,” Ruri stated calmly while raising the cutlass, ready to deliver the finishing blow.

“You don’t need to do this. There is another way.”

“You found one?”

“Yes.”

“But he knows who I am,” Ruri tried to argue.

“He won’t ever say a word, I can assure you,” Kasuka promised. “Where are you? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You’d better hurry. I cut his arm pretty badly,” Ruri said and gave Kasuka directions on how to get there after which she lowered the cutlass and raised the foot crushing Izaya’s wrist.

“What did the freak say? That he’ll come here to finish me off himself?” Izaya hissed the words as he glared murder at Ruri. The bitch was looking extremely calm for someone who’d just chased a man with a cutlass and tried to kill him.

Instead of answering, Ruri crouched next to Izaya and placed the cutlass on the ground behind her.

“Yuuhei asked me not to kill you, so stand still while I make a tourniquet if you don’t want to end up bleeding to death before he gets here.”

Izaya pretended to listen while he eyed the cutlass and he didn’t fight back when Ruri grabbed the black V-shaped T-shirt and ripped a piece from it. She helped him pull the injured arm out of the jacket and then he allowed her to tie the ripped piece of material around it. The gash looked nasty and deep and Izaya was already starting to feel faint from the blood loss. He needed to distract himself with something, anything, so he chose to say something to Ruri. “Getting you hurt that day was not my intention.”

“That has nothing to do with this,” Ruri said and picked up the cutlass before Izaya could get his hands on it. He’d seen the man stare at it once in a while and she didn’t want to be forced to finish him off before Kasuka arrived there.

Izaya cursed under his breath for not going after the cutlass the second Ruri put it down because now he was defenseless again and at the bitch’s mercy. “You don’t have to do what that freak told you to do. You probably think you owe him a debt for trying to take a bullet for you that day.” Izaya didn’t have a switchblade, but words could be as much of a weapon as the one in Ruri’s hand. Unexpectedly, some voices could be heard in the distance and Izaya thought about screaming for help but the cutlass pressed to his throat made him reconsider.

“Yuuhei never asked me to do this, but if you try anything, I’m going to kill you regardless of his wishes.”

The threat was spoken in a flat as opposed to angry tone, but Izaya found it chilling nonetheless. Hollywood, Hijiribe Ruri, was a vicious killer who mutilated her victims and Izaya didn’t want to end up an unrecognizable corpse. If anything, he had better chances at negotiating with Kasuka than he did with a serial killer. He nodded, letting her know that he understood, and they spent the rest of the time in silence until Kasuka’s car stopped in front of the alley and the freak got out and made his way to them.

“Ruri, are you okay?” Kasuka asked, first inspecting his girlfriend to make sure she wasn’t hurt before looking at Izaya who was sitting down with his back against the alley’s wall, bleeding arm lying limply in his lap. “Go wait in the car,” he told Ruri who seemed reluctant to leave. “I know what I’m doing,” he assured her, and this time she nodded and left the two of them to talk in peace.

A malicious laughter burst through Izaya’s lips and he raised his head to meet the freak’s empty stare. “It seems that Shinra isn’t the only one around here with a monstrous girlfriend,” he mocked and then laughed some more. “It looks to me like you knew who she was and yet you don’t seem to care.” When Kasuka didn’t say anything, Izaya continued. “Anyway, I’m guessing you’re here to kill me yourself because I hurt your precious brother.”

“I won’t kill you,” Kasuka spoke calmly as he handed Izaya his phone.

“Oh?”

“I will make sure that Ruri will never come after you again and I’ll even take you to the hospital, but in return you will leave my brother alone. You will leave me alone, and you will never do anything to put Ruri in danger again.”

“And why would I do that?” Izaya said, sounding amused.

“It’s very simple,” Kasuka stated. “If anything happens to my brother, Ruri, or any member of my family, the DVD you took of me that day will be sent to the media.”

Izaya stared in disbelief for a few moments, trying to find his words. “You’re bluffing!”

“I don’t care about my career. I only care about protecting those I love. If people saw what you tried doing to me, everyone would hate you, because at the end of the day, you’d be known as the man who had tried to hurt Hanejima Yuuhei. Not to mention that you’d surely end up in prison.”

Izaya’s eyes burned with hatred because everything Kasuka was saying was true, but he wasn’t about to let the freak win this one. “Then I’d tell everyone what Shizu-chan did to me.”

Kasuka bent forward and helped Izaya up. “You once asked me how far I’d go for my brother. This is how far I’d go. I’m willing to lose everything if it means keeping him safe.  Even if people believe you and everyone ends up hating him, at least he’d be alive, and that would be enough, because being alive is always better than the alternative.”

Izaya broke into hysterical laughter and he clung to the man he wanted to murder with all his might as they made their way to the car. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chapter 64: Once In A Garden

”Are you kidding me?!” Sakamoto cried, exasperated, as Izaya walked into his office, bleeding and looking like he was one step away from passing out―again. Izaya getting injured was nothing out of the ordinary, but Sakamoto caught sight of Kasuka before the door closed and he couldn’t help but wonder if the two of them had gotten into a fight. He couldn’t imagine Kasuka hurting Izaya, but then again, the Informant had tried to kill Shizuo, and if that wasn’t enough to anger Kasuka, then he didn’t know what was.

Izaya shot him an irritated look. “Just patch me up and I’ll be on my way.”

“I thought I told you not to come here anymore,” Sakamoto said, still not getting up.

“The other doctors would ask questions, perhaps even call the police,” Izaya said and let out a sound of frustration as he struggled by himself to take off the jacket.

Sakamoto placed his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on the back of his interlaced fingers. “Maybe they should,” he said, eyes narrowing into slits.

“Ah, well, sure, that’s fine by me. I mean, I was attacked for no reason, so I might as well let the police know who was the person who tried to kill me.”

“Was it Kasuka?”

“No, but he was involved.”

Finally, Sakamoto got up and approached Izaya to inspect the wound. “This is deep. It doesn’t look like a switchblade wound.”

Izaya let out a humorless laugh when he looked at it himself and realized just how deep the cut seemed to be. The sight increased the sense of nausea and lightheadedness he had already been experiencing and he turned his head in the opposite direction, hoping to lessen it. “It wasn’t a switchblade. It was something bigger.”

Frowning, Sakamoto picked up a piece of gauze to clean the wound before he could sew it up. “I can’t wait for the day when Shinra’s broken bones heal up and I don’t have to deal with you anymore.”

“No more than me,” Izaya assured him.

***

“We should go to my place,” Ruri suggested before she proceeded to carefully wrap the mask and the cutlass in the plastic bag that Kasuka had provided. “There should be fewer reporters outside the building.”

Kasuka nodded and took off his jacket. “You should put this on,” he suggested and handed it to Ruri before starting the engine and driving away from the hospital.

“How can you be so sure that Orihara Izaya won’t talk?” Ruri couldn’t help but ask after slipping on the jacket and reclining against the seat, trying to find a more comfortable position.

After a few moments of debating whether or not to tell her, Kasuka opted for revealing some of the truth. “I have a DVD in my possession that Izaya wouldn’t want to end up in the hands of the media.”

Ruri turned to Kasuka, now giving him her full attention. “What’s on it?”

“Something I’d rather you not see,” Kasuka confessed. “Like I said, you don’t know the full story of what happened between my brother and Izaya.” Ruri was obviously curious, but Kasuka hoped there would never come a day when she saw the contents of the DVD. That time, with Slon and Izaya, he’d been humiliated enough for a lifetime, and the last thing he wanted was for his girlfriend to see a recording of him almost getting raped.

“Then I won’t ask to see it,” Ruri spoke in a monotone voice while staring out the window. She would’ve preferred to kill Izaya and get rid of the threat, but Kasuka seemed convinced that he could keep the Informant from going after them and Ruri chose to trust the man she had come to love.

Kasuka thanked her and then waited until they stopped at a red light before turning to her and placing a necklace with a small key around her neck. “Keep it safe.”

“What does it open?” Ruri asked as she toyed with the small key dangling from her neck.

Still looking like his usual emotionless self, Kasuka wrapped an arm around Ruri’s shoulders and pulled her closer. “I hope you never get to find out,” he said and planted a kiss on her lips.

***

That goddamn freak, threatening me like that, Izaya thought angrily as he lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. Without proof, no one would believe that Hanejima Yuuhei’s brother had raped him even if Izaya were to scream it to the world. It wasn’t that he wanted others to find out, but it still hurt to know that people would not give a shit, call him a liar or say that he deserved it.

His body shook with rage at the mere thought of it because all Kasuka had to do was act offended and or hurt for the Heiwajima brothers to appear as the victims. Izaya felt that he was chocking with how angry he was, and he ended up smashing one of his phones into the wall, not even realizing what he’d just done until after he heard the sound of it breaking to pieces.

He cursed under his breath and lay down in bed again, resting his uninjured arm over his eyes. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on with the way things were, especially with how angry he was. Any mistake could cost him dearly and he didn’t want to risk ending up in prison since the point of revenge was to destroy Shizuo and not himself.

Unfortunately, the emotionless freak had proven more than once to be a smart and resourceful guy. Kasuka could’ve given the DVD to anyone, so Izaya doubted he could easily find the damn thing. It was a shame that the freak wasn’t as stupid as the beast because it made everything that much harder for him.

It crossed Izaya’s mind that perhaps what he needed to clear his head and find the best course of action was to step away from the board, further than ever before. As a puppeteer or a chess master, he was a disgrace if he couldn’t even keep his pieces in check.

I need a vacation, Izaya thought as he got up and started to pack. It was something he’d decided on a whim but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get away from Tokyo and from everything bad in his life; at least for a while, until he distanced himself enough from the Heiwajima brothers so that he could see things clearly again. He packed lightly―he didn’t need much and if there was something he needed, he could always buy it―took a shower, while being mindful of his injuries, and got dressed. He then carried the luggage downstairs and left Namie a message before walking out of the apartment and heading towards the train station.

***

It was still early in the morning when the train arrived at Yumoto Station in Hakone. Izaya had picked this destination first because it was the closest to Tokyo and because the hot springs seemed like a good place to relax. He took a bus from there and then tried to find accommodations at the first Ryokan he found in his path, but all the rooms were occupied and he had no choice but to look online for a place where he could find a room.

The next Japanese-style inn in his path seemed too modest for his taste but luckily he found something he liked the next one after that. He didn’t receive the full breakfast since they hadn’t had time to prepare it, but he wasn’t hungry anyway and all he wanted to do was relax in one of the hot springs.

Izaya almost felt like a little kid again as he headed for the bathhouse, wearing a yukata and carrying a towel in his right hand. He’d just put on a different set of slippers and walked into the bathhouse, one he’d made sure had showers so that he wouldn’t have to get naked in front of strangers, when he was suddenly hit by nausea at the sight of a guy, no older than himself, getting up from the stool where the man had just washed himself, and heading in his direction.

He froze, like a deer caught in the headlights, but the man simply walked past him as though Izaya wasn’t even there to begin with. When he could move again, Izaya turned on his heels and headed back to the inn, feet thudding on the tatami floors as he hurried back to his room. Once inside he sat down on the floor with his back against the sliding doors, heart hammering inside his chest.

Perhaps it was too soon to go to the hot spring since there would be naked men there. Izaya had made sure this particular inn allowed people to cover themselves, but that didn’t mean others would choose to do the same. His body shook at the mere memory of seeing another man’s dick and he found himself dropping the towel and wrapping his good arm around raised knees as he fought to calm down. He’d assumed he could deal with it, but it looked like he couldn’t; not yet anyway. If anything, Izaya felt vulnerable and scared even though it didn’t make sense for him to feel that way when no one had threatened him in any way since he’d arrived in Hakone.

Even injured, he could probably win in a fight against most men he’d run into, but the fear was there and he doubted he would feel safe anytime soon. Look what you’ve done to me, Shizu-chan. I hope you’re happy, he thought bitterly as he pushed himself to his feet and proceeded to get changed. Traditional Style inns weren’t for him, not when he couldn’t even take a bath without the risk of having a panic attack, something he was ashamed to admit even to himself.

The room had already been paid for but Izaya didn’t care; he just wanted to get out of there. Without hesitation, he picked up his case and walked out of the room and then out of the inn, heading in the direction of a modern-looking hotel he’d seen on his way there. It was for the best anyway, especially when his upper arm was an ugly, swollen red. He’d wrapped it up as best as he could, even using waterproof bandages, but the wound still hurt even after taking painkillers―probably too many―and he was still feeling rather weak. The hot water could’ve easily made him feel lightheaded and the more he thought about it, the more Izaya realized that perhaps the whole vacation thing had been a bad idea. It was just that he wanted to get away, at least for a while, until he was less bloodthirsty and more calculated. Deep inside though, he knew that he was running away.

Shaking his head to chase away such thoughts, he walked into the hotel and asked for a room with a nice view. This place had a few available rooms and Izaya chose the one on the highest floor. No matter where he was, Izaya enjoyed watching his surroundings from high above, as close to the sky as possible.

Izaya spent that day in his room, thinking about all sorts of things, but the following days he went around the city, visiting as many places as he could. His favorites ended up being the Hakone Shrine and the Old Tokaido Road. While going up the stairs or down the road, it felt as though he had a clear destination as opposed to not knowing where he was going, which was how he felt most of the time.

After spending a week there, mostly people-watching, Izaya traveled to Kyoto. He knew exactly what he wanted to visit there, so after settling in at the hotel he went to see the Ryoan-ji Temple’s dry rock garden. There were a few theories about what the garden depicted, from a tiger carrying a cub across a stream, to a sky dotted with clouds or the map of the Chinese Zen monasteries, but all Izaya could see were rocks and gravel; at least that’s what he thought the first time he was there. After a while, on the third day to be more precise, he saw himself, Shizuo, and the other disturbing Ikebukuro elements in the rocks, while the gravel made him think of a sea of ordinary people.

It was at the Ryoan-ji Temple where Izaya met an interesting woman. She appeared to be around his age or perhaps a year or two older, and even though she was beautiful, her beauty wasn’t what had caught Izaya’s attention. Just like Izaya himself, she seemed to be running from something, and it didn’t take him long to realize that she too didn’t want to talk about herself. Out of respect toward one another, they didn’t ask personal questions and instead talked about everything else, from science to the supernatural and even going so far as to talk about morality and about good and evil.

They would meet at the Ryoan-ji temple every day, spend an hour or two staring at the garden, and then they would go around Kyoto, visiting tourist attractions. Izaya found himself more than once staring at her face, especially those plump cherry lips and dark brown eyes. One night, about a week after they met, he couldn’t help himself and he ended up kissing her after attending a tea ceremony. Seeing how she responded to the kiss, Izaya assumed she was just as interested if not more.

As he headed back to his hotel that night, Izaya briefly thought about putting his skills to good use and finding out everything there was to know about the woman he decided to call Masami, which meant ‘elegant beauty’, but in the end he chose against it. He didn’t know why, but for the first time in a long time, he was enjoying the mystery. It made him forget about beasts and freaks, about headless monsters and about psychotic serial killers. When he was with her, Izaya felt as though he was standing inside the eye of a storm while the world around him moved in a chaotic and destructive manner.

It wasn’t that Izaya loved her―after all, his love was for all humans, not just one―but he was sexually attracted to her and that realization alone brought him some peace of mind. The many times he’d nearly had a panic attack while left with no choice but to take care of an erection were enough to make him wonder if he’d ever be normal again.

Almost two weeks after they met, Izaya invited her to his hotel room and they ended up in bed, kissing. She seemed like the dominating type, but he made sure to keep her under him because he didn’t like the idea of being pinned down even if his partner was a woman. Masami’s skin was soft and the sounds she was making as they kissed only made him want to hear more, so he helped her slip off her blouse and unclasped her bra, finally gaining the freedom to touch her breasts.

In turn, Masami helped him take off his T-shirt and unbuckled his belt, but he stopped her before her small hands came in contact with his still mostly limp member by pinning her down again and capturing her wrists in one hand while using his other to massage her breasts. He was afraid that rushing it would cause the memories to reappear, because no matter how much he kept telling himself that sex could feel good, all he remembered was the pain of having been viciously violated by a beast.

“Come back,” Masami whispered against his lips.

Izaya froze for a second, feeling slightly embarrassed, but he quickly recovered and released her wrists before moving lower and helping her out of her skirt. Perhaps taking it slowly was not such a good idea because it gave him too much time to think when all he had to do was feel and live in the moment. His body’s temperature was going up the more they kissed but the damn thing in his pants was still not hardening quickly enough and he wondered if it ever would.

As if guessing his worries, Masami slipped a hand inside his briefs and grasped his member, making Izaya’s body jolt in shock, but her soft fingers felt heavenly and he ended up groaning and pushing into her hands while they kissed hungrily.

It looked like things were going well, that is until Masami grabbed Izaya’s ass and squeezed it. It was supposed to be something hot, but it triggered flashbacks of a beast with inhuman strength pounding into him hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs and Izaya got off of her and retreated to the edge of the bed, struggling to fight back the torrent of memories flooding his mind.

He was back in that alley, screaming and crying while a monster tortured him with a sadistic pleasure Izaya did not know Shizuo to be capable of. The feelings of helplessness, shame and disgust were overwhelming and he didn’t come back from his nightmare until Masami grabbed his shoulder and shook him a few times.

“Nakura-san, please come back,” she pleaded until Izaya’s eyes focused on her. Pulling back her hand, she grabbed her blouse and slipped it back on. “Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea.”

Izaya was too embarrassed and ashamed to even talk, but Masami’s calm voice was enough to keep him rooted there even though the memories were still lurking behind his eyelids like a terrible nightmare he would never be able to get rid of.

When Masami addressed him again she was sitting down on the bed next to him, looking as beautiful as ever, and all Izaya could think about in that moment was that he was not man enough to be with her or with any other woman because he was weak. He should’ve fought harder, he should’ve found a way to stop Shizuo, and because he hadn’t, he had ended up as nothing more than a hole for Ikebukuro’s monster to fuck. A wave of nausea hit him with the force of a tsunami and his shoulders drooped further while his hands shook with fine tremors. Deep down he knew there was nothing he could’ve done to fight off Shizuo, but reason and logic had very little to do when it came to the post-traumatic stress disorder he refused to admit he was suffering from.

Masami raised a hand and softly brushed her fingers across the healing cut on his arm, her expression one of worry. Her hand then traveled lower and she did the same to the scar on his back, her touch causing a shiver to run down his spine. “An intelligent man who lives a dangerous life; a rare combination.”

Izaya’s breathing had slowed down and he laughed at the comment, albeit bitterly.

Masami got up and moved in front of him, using her hands to raise his head so that she could gaze into those almost red eyes one last time. “One cannot move forward before coming to terms with the past,” she said quietly before leaning forward and giving him a kiss on the forehead. “I think I’m ready to go back now, but I’ll never forget these beautiful couple of weeks you gave me,” she then added before picking up her purse and leaving the room, never looking back.

***

Almost two months had passed since Izaya found Shizuo and attempted to kill him but Shizuo was still in a coma and Izaya was nowhere to be found. It was as though the man had dropped off the face of the Earth, but Kasuka had this nagging feeling that the Informant was hiding in the shadows, watching him and his family and waiting for the right moment to strike, like a snake stalking its victim before devouring it.

“Mother,” Kasuka said after he turned away from the window and his half-closed eyes settled on his mother’s hand holding Shizuo’s in her own much smaller one. “I’ll take you home.”

His mother shook her head, her eyes never leaving Shizuo’s face. “I’ll take the train back to Tokyo tomorrow morning.”

“Father needs you,” Kasuke said in the hope of convincing her to come back with him.

“Your father will be just fine. I left him food in the fridge.”

“I wasn’t talking about―”

“I know, but he’ll be fine anyway.”

If there was one thing Kasuka knew, it was that he could never win an argument against his mother, so he nodded and wished her a good night―even though he knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep―before walking out the door and the hospital and then getting into his car.

He wanted to see Ruri but she was filming a music video for one of her songs and they couldn’t meet up because of that. Kasuka himself was going to star in a new movie soon and they only had another week before filming began and he would be too busy to meet up with her every day.

Kasuka loved her and he felt bad that he couldn’t show her just how much, at least not in the same way most people expressed their feelings towards those they loved, but Ruri understood him and it was more than he could’ve ever asked for. It was as though they were made for each other, and Kasuka couldn’t imagine being with anyone else after having met her.

The road back to Tokyo felt long, but Kasuka kept thinking about Ruri and just as he was nearing his apartment building his phone rang and he picked it up, inwardly smiling when he saw the name on the screen. “I was just thinking about you.”

“I had a feeling you were, and I wanted to hear your voice,” Ruri said as she toyed with the key Kasuka had given her the night she’d tried to kill Orihara Izaya. They never talked about it again but to Ruri, the key was the symbol of how much he trusted her.

“I wanted to hear your voice too,” Kasuka said, and the irony of the whole situation was that both of their voices sounded just as emotionless even though their owners weren’t. “Any chance that you will finish early tonight?”

“I doubt it, since the director in charge of this video seems very hard to please. He’ll probably keep us here until morning.”

“One second,” Kasuka said so that he could concentrate on parking the car since the lights seemed to have gone off moments after entering the underground parking lot. “I’m back,” he said and walked away from the car, wondering what was going on since the apartment building was supposed to have emergency lighting for this exact type of situation.

“I can come over to your place in the morning, or whenever I’m done filming,” Ruri suggested. “If you want me to.”

Kasuka opened his mouth to give Ruri his answer while further narrowing his eyes, hoping to see the elevator doors before he bumped into them. “Of course I―”

In the next moment someone jumped at him from between two of the parked cars and he dropped the phone when a fist collided with the side of his face hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground. He tried to get up but he was kicked in the stomach and he felt the air being knocked out of his lungs because of the strength behind the blow. He curled into a ball to protect himself while at the same time trying to catch a glimpse of his attacker, but the man kicked him in the face, knocking him out.

The last thoughts going through Kasuka’s mind before losing consciousness were that it had to be Izaya’s doing and that he was going to die.

“Yuuhei? Yuuhei? What’s wrong? Are you all right? Answer me!” Ruri’s voice could be heard faintly through the phone’s speaker, but that too went silent when the man stepped on the small device, crushing it under his boot before picking Kasuka up, dumping him inside a van and driving out of there.

Chapter 65: The Shadow of the Past

Notes:

I was thinking about how divided opinions are amongst my readers and this quote came to mind: "You can't please everyone, nor should you seek to, because then you won't please anyone, least of all yourself." ― Dylan Moran

By the time the sun rose, the police officers arrived at the scene had already concluded that based on the few droplets of blood they found near the broken phone and Ruri's testimony about their conversation being interrupted in the middle of talking to each other, Hanejima Yuuhei had been kidnapped.

They asked her if she knew who might've done it, but Ruri, who in the meantime had left the set where she was shooting her latest video, chose to remain silent instead of giving them Izaya's name. She couldn't reach the Informant, and going around saying that Orihara Izaya had done it could get Kasuka killed, something that Ruri wanted to avoid at all costs since she loved him and she couldn't stand the thought of losing him.

It was also possible that the kidnapper was not Izaya and that it was some crazy fan or someone doing it for the money. As Ruri’s fingers tightened around the key Kasuka had given her, she hoped that it was Izaya because she had no problem trading the key for her boyfriend if that was what it took to get him back in one piece. As long as she didn’t know what it opened, the little metallic thing hanging from a chain around her neck was completely useless.

After releasing the key, Ruri placed her hand on Yuigadokusonmaru’s head and started to gently caress the little ball of fur since Kasuka’s cat appeared to be just as restless as Ruri herself.  She was now inside Kasuka’s apartment, sitting in an armchair while the police looked around the place to see if the actor had received any threatening letters lately.

To Ruri’s surprise, they actually found a few, some from people who appeared to be her own fans and others from the jealous boyfriends of a couple of Hanejima Yuuhei’s female fans. She found it disturbing how much hatred some people could amass towards someone they had no real reason to hate.

Kasuka’s father was inside the apartment as well, talking to the police, while the mother was on a train back to Tokyo. Heiwajima Kichirou looked like he was one stop away from falling apart and Ruri couldn’t blame the man when his son had just been kidnapped and the other was in the hospital in a coma. Ruri had met them before while visiting Shizuo with Kasuka and she saw them as good people who loved their sons, which was why she hated to think about how much pain they had to be going through.

Ruri’s thoughts kept going back to the DVD Kasuka had mentioned and she couldn’t help but wonder what was on it. She was absentmindedly petting Yuigadokusonmaru when Kasuka’s father approached her with a glass of water in hand.

“How are you holding up?” he asked Ruri as he handed her the glass and she took a sip from it before placing it on the coffee table between the armchair and the couch Heiwajima Kichirou took a seat on.

“As well as I can, given the situation,” she admitted. Just like in any other case of kidnapping, the first twenty-four hours were critical and Ruri hoped they’d soon get a phone call from someone demanding a ransom because the idea of a person kidnapping Kasuka with the purpose of torturing and or killing him was one that neither Ruri nor Kichirou wanted to entertain.

***

Kasuka didn’t know for how long he’d been out but he continued to pretend to be unconscious even after waking up. He’d been blindfolded and the handcuffs and legcuffs made escape nearly impossible to achieve but he had a way to free himself and for that he needed the kidnapper to leave him alone for a few minutes. The fact that his hands were cuffed behind his back made it harder for him to free himself but he was confident in his ability to escape since he wasn’t the type of person to just give up, roll over and die.

At that moment, he was lying on his side with his knees slightly bent and his right cheek lying in what he assumed was blood. His face felt sticky and swollen and the coppery smell and taste was more than a bit irritating. He almost couldn’t feel his right shoulder anymore and the handcuffs were biting into his skin hard enough to almost stop the blood flow, but he knew that he couldn’t move no matter how much he wanted to.

All Kasuka could do in his situation was think of ways to get out alive and in one piece, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that his initial assumption about Izaya being behind the attack and the kidnapping had been erroneous because the man wasn’t stupid enough to risk being sent to prison. Orihara Izaya was smarter than that, and if Izaya wasn’t the one behind it, then Kasuka had no idea who the kidnapper could be.

Either way, he was hoping to escape as soon as possible because he didn’t want Ruri to see the video. He’d only given her the key, but he had no doubts that she would get her hands on the DVD by the end of the day. Ruri would then assume the worst after seeing it and with Shizuo in a coma, there was no one besides Izaya to tell her the truth, which Ruri would most likely disregard as lies.

He was just thinking that his situation was more than a little bit grim when the van stopped and he heard the driver get out and then open the sliding door to the back. Kicking the kidnapper and trying to make a run for it was impossible as long as his ankles were tied up so he chose to lay deathly still, the numbness in his arm making it a challenge to not move past slight breaths caught in his throat. The pain in his arm seized his muscles, forcing his tongue between his teeth in a struggle to keep himself still as he was moved to another van. A few moments later he heard the sounds of what were most likely his boots being thrown into the van and he paid attention to where he thought they might’ve landed so that he could get to them as soon as possible the moment he would be left alone.

The one and only good thing about changing vans was that Kasuka was now lying on his other side and that he was starting to get feeling back into his right shoulder, but his hope of the kidnapper leaving him alone for a while flew out the window when the man got into the van and drove out of there.

Time seemed to slow down after that, mostly because Kasuka couldn’t see anything and also because every second felt like it was stretching along the coil of his muscles nearly snapping his bones as parts of his body had fallen victim to the sensation of pins and needles; it was more than enough to gnaw at the fatigue fraying his sanity. Luckily, Kasuka was anything but normal, self-control included, and he continued to lay silently even though it felt as though his muscles were ripping his veins from tissue and shredding them with the lack of circulation.

An hour or so must’ve passed until the van stopped again and this time it looked like the kidnapper was moving away because the door to the back didn’t open right away and Kasuka thought he imagined the fade of footsteps into the distance, echoing with the blood rushing in his ears. Without wasting another second, he curled in on himself and struggled to bring his hands to the front, the numbness masking the pain of the metal digging angrily into his skin as he forced his swollen hands past his torso.

The first thing Kasuka did now that he had a bit more mobility was to take off the blindfold, but before he could get his hands on one of the shoelaces, the door opened and Kasuka froze with his hand in mid-air. He turned his head slowly and calmly towards the one who was most likely the kidnapper and then lowered his hand before moving to sit in a more comfortable position. The person standing right outside the door appeared to be covered in bandages so Kasuka couldn’t see the face, but the man’s frame and the possibly missing eye was enough to give him an idea regarding his captor’s identity.

“You’re not dead,” Kasuka stated calmly even though he could feel a cold knot of what he identified as fear somewhere deep inside his stomach.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Slon replied sarcastically before he leaned forward to capture Kasuka’s ankle in a vice grip.

A few split seconds of pure instinct urged Kasuka to pull away but he pushed it back down before he could lose control and go into fight or flight mode.

“Grab the boots,” the much bigger man ordered. “And since you went through the trouble of bringing your hands to the front, you can put them on yourself,” Slon then added and pulled Kasuka towards the door.

The first thing Kasuka noticed once he was outside was that he was somewhere deep into the forest and that to his left laid a small path leading to what he assumed would be a cabin. The van couldn’t go any further and Kasuka now understood why Slon had asked him to put his boots on. Things looked worse by the second and Kasuka knew that he needed to get away no matter what before reaching the destination. “I can’t put them on because of the legcuffs,” Kasuka argued, already having formed a plan in his head.

“I’ll take them off in a second, but first there are a few things we need to talk about,” Slon growled, warning of the danger with the drag of a snarl in between the sneer of his lips.

“I’m listening,” Kasuka replied while staring Slon in the uncovered eye hardened with enmity.

“Any attempt to escape will be met with severe punishment.”

Kasuka nodded. “I understand.”

“As you can see,” Slon said while making a gesture with his hand to indicate the forest around them, “we are in the middle of nowhere, so even if by some miracle you manage to escape, you won’t get any help. When I find you, and I will because finding people and putting a bullet through their skulls is what I do, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life and then carry you back to the cabin myself. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Say it!”

“I understand,” Kasuka said in the same monotone voice.

Slon was a good actor himself, especially when it came to fooling people into believing what he wanted them to believe, but it looked like Hanejima Yuuhei was on a whole different level and Slon couldn’t help but admire the actor for being able to remain calm in such a situation. “Good,” he said and fished out the key from the pocket of his pants. He then crouched in front of Kasuka and unlocked the legcuffs as quickly as possible before standing up, taking a step backwards and shoving the cuffs and the key into the left pocket of his trench coat. “Put your boots on,” he then commanded.

With a nod of his head, Kasuka bent down and made a show of struggling to put them on.

“What’s wrong?” Slon asked.

“I still can’t feel my fingers,” Kasuka answered as he straightened his back. “And I’m thirsty, so may I please have some water?”

Slon made a sound of annoyance and went to pick up a small bottle from the front seat. He then handed it to Kasuka and crouched down to tie the shoelaces, but the second he was done tying them up he felt a knee collide with his face and he ended up falling backwards, groaning in pain.

Kasuka darted down the path with the tracks the tires had left behind knowing that he had to put as much distance between himself and Slon if he wanted to at least have a chance at escaping. He increased his speed as much as he could, not wasting any time looking back because any second could make the difference between captivity and freedom.

Slon stood up, hissing in pain, and made his way to the driver’s seat. Once there he retrieved something from his backpack before slamming the door shut and going after Kasuka. “дерьмо́!” he cursed out loud when he felt the bandages covering his face getting wet with the blood running down his nose.

Kasuka was running as fast as he could but he was having troubles keeping his balance because his hands were still tied up and he couldn’t afford to stop and take them off when Slon was right behind him, shouting threats in what sounded like Russian. He got off the path and dashed through the trees, switching direction as often as he could in the hope of losing Slon inside the thick forest.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Slon shouted and fired a warning shot which Hanejima Yuuhei was obviously ignoring because the man was still running away, seemingly uncaring of the threat.

Thinking that Slon was bluffing, Kasuka didn’t stop, but the bullet flying right past him and hitting the tree situated straight ahead made him reconsider his previous assertion regarding the man. He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, so he turned left and jumped down the slope knowing that Slon couldn’t easily follow. The fact that his hands were cuffed made the fall more painful than it would’ve normally been and he couldn’t help but let out a few pained grunts as he tumbled down, rocks and sharp sticks digging and slicing into his skin in an exacerbated crawl of time coming to a slow stop with a sudden force colliding into his back. The feel of bark ripping into his shirt and embedding in his spine informed him that the object was a tree.

His whole body ached and Kasuka wanted nothing more than to curl in on himself and wait until the pain stopped but he pushed himself to his feet and limped away from there, at first walking and then running because he knew that Slon would catch up to him and he couldn’t afford to waste a single second. Slon was dangerous and Kasuka didn’t even want to think about what would happen to him if the man were to catch him. If the reason for the kidnapping was revenge, then Kasuka had no doubts that what awaited him at the cabin was a world of pain.

He could deal with the pain, just as he had dealt with it in the past whenever he ended up getting attacked by people who hated Shizuo, but there was that other thing Slon had tried doing to him and Kasuka didn’t want to end up like Izaya. The image of a pale body covered in blood and bruises flashed inside his mind and he chased it away because he didn’t want to think how easily that could be him if he got captured.

His mouth was dry, his entire body hurt and it felt like his muscles were on fire but Kasuka continued to run, gasping for breaths that were harder and harder to get into his lungs. After a while he ended up tripping on a root and falling to the ground and he figured it'd be a good time to take a small break. Licking his lips, he unscrewed the cap and took a few greedy gulps of some much needed water. He then placed the bottle on the ground, grabbed the black rubber piece covering the shoelace’s tip and pulled, the action revealing a universal handcuff key discreetly attached to the tip of the bootlace that Kasuka had made sure to acquire after his experience with Slon and Izaya.

Back then, the handcuffs had been too loose and Kasuka had managed to slip one off, but he wasn’t naive enough to believe that such a thing would happen a second time. As such, he ordered the shoelace after looking online for ways to conceal a key because Izaya was a dangerous man and Kasuka thought it was best to be prepared.

His leg muscles were spasming and his hands were still quivering but he couldn’t afford to lose any more time so he pushed the key into the lock and hoped that it would work. To his muted relief, it did. His wrists were red and the skin had broken in some parts, allowing the blood to flow down his arms, but he didn’t dwell on it and instead pushed the rubber cover back into place to conceal the key and stood up, staggering for a moment and only succeeding to bend down and pick up the bottle when a shot was fired and the bottle flew out of his hand.

“Run and the next one ends up in your leg,” Slon warned after revealing himself.

Kasuka straightened himself and turned to Slon who was walking towards him, gun in hand. A bullet to the leg would most likely not be fatal if treated right away, but it would certainly make it near impossible for him to escape. Seeing no other choice, Kasuka decided to surrender. If possible, he would try to take the gun out of Slon’s hand, but he doubted a good opportunity would arise.

“Turn around, put your hands to the side with your palms in my direction and spread your legs. Wider,” Slon ordered and waited until Kasuka did as he was told before approaching him. He should’ve known after their previous encounter that Hanejima Yuuhei was a force to be reckoned with and Slon made up his mind to never underestimate the man again. While still holding the gun, he pulled out a set of hinged handcuffs and placed one end around the man’s right wrist. “Put your free hand behind your back,” he then instructed and pulled the cuffed wrist towards the free one and snapped the other end shut.

The position was very hard to keep because his legs felt weak after so much running so Kasuka tried to bring them back together, but an unexpected vicious kick to the knee sent him falling to the ground, his right shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. He tried not to scream, but his knee hurt too much and he let out a choked sound of agony when Slon grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a standing position, the emotionless mask nearly cracking in the face of so much physical pain.

“I’d like to see you escape now,” Slon challenged as he started to walk, pulling Kasuka after him by the arm.

Kasuka had to struggle not to hiss or groan in pain every time his foot touched the ground, but it was hard when it felt as though his knee was broken and all he wanted to do was lie down and wait until the pain went away or at least lessened. “I can’t walk,” he tried to tell Slon more than once, but the man ignored him every time and Kasuka stopped after a while because he was afraid his voice might be too shaky.

The trek back to the van took longer than expected because the distance was greater than what Kasuka thought he might’ve covered while trying to escape, but at least Slon sat him down in the back and even allowed him to rest for a bit.

“Drink,” the man said and brought a bottle of water to Kasuka’s lips.

Instead of opening it right away, Kasuka stared for a while before finally allowing the not cool enough liquid to flow down his throat. Denying himself water served no purpose so he drank as much as Slon allowed him to drink.

With the way things were, Kasuka stood no chance at escaping so he resigned himself to the idea of not being able to get away from the man anytime soon. The hinged handcuffs were impossible to remove before reaching the cabin and even if he could do that, his knee still hurt too much and he could barely walk, let alone run. As if that wasn’t already bad enough, there was also the issue of the gun which Kasuka doubted he could get his hands on.

“Up,” Slon ordered and Kasuka complied, resting his weight on the good leg for only a moment before the man grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him up the small pathway leading to the cabin that was to be his prison.

“Are you doing this for revenge?” Kasuka asked after about two minutes of walking, but he received no answer.

They walked for another ten minutes or so after that and Kasuka almost felt relief when the cabin appeared in sight―he didn’t know for much longer he could walk before his knee finally gave out―but the boarded windows made him worry a bit because it showed that Slon had planned things beforehand.

“What happened back then wasn’t my fault,” Kasuka tried again, but the man continued to ignore him even after opening the door and walking inside. As expected, he was dragged into the room with the boarded windows, but the boarded windows seemed like less of a problem now after seeing the chain attached to a metal plate bolted into the floor and ending in a leg cuff.

There was a bed inside, a nightstand and a small table and Kasuka was unceremoniously dropped on the floor by Slon who proceeded to take off the boots and socks and attach the cuff to his left ankle. He thought about kicking Slon again, but the idea of the man breaking one of his bones, or worse, kept him from doing so.

“I’ll bring you a clean change of clothes, so don’t lie down on the bed yet,” Slon said before turning on his heels and walking out of the room, taking Kasuka’s boots with him.

The finality of the door closing was enough to make Kasuka’s heart beat a little bit faster but his expression remained as emotionless as ever.

Panicking would only make things worse and Heiwajima Kasuka wasn’t one to panic. He’d just have to remain calm and find a way out of there as quickly as possible. There were always ways out of every situation and he was going to find one no matter what.

Notes:

I've been melting for the past two days and today I pushed myself to finish this chapter because like I said, I will try to update as often as I can. I then asked Majora to beta this for me and the chapter ended up sounding sooo much better with the suggestions I was given. You can probably recognize the parts Majora added because they're so poetic~

If only I could write that well but I'll probably never be able to describe emotions and actions in the poetic way Majora does it. ;n;

*curls into a corner and whines pathetically* ໒( •́ ∧ •̀ )७

Thank you, my dear Majora! ♥

Chapter 66: Cornered

Slon came back about five minutes later and crouched down next to his prisoner after placing a folded yukata on the bed. "There's a small bathroom adjacent to this room. It’s behind that door over there,” he said and pointed to his left. "Now go take a shower."

Kasuka's eyes moved to the door and then back to Slon. "Handcuffs."

"I'm going to take them off in a second," Slon said as he pulled out and flicked open a switchblade, "but first we have to get rid of these clothes."

Even with the raw pain pulsing in his knee and flaring up every time he so much as took a breath, Kasuka still tried to move away, but Slon's hand wrapped around his bad knee and squeezed it tightly, making him hiss and bite into his lower lip so that he wouldn't give his captor the satisfaction of hearing him cry.

"Stand still if you don't want me to slice you up by accident," Slon advised before he slipped the blade inside the pants' right leg and started to cut.

The more skin was revealed―heavily bruised in some parts and scratched in others―the more humiliated Kasuka felt, but he remained calm even when his belt was cut and the pants were ripped out from under him, leaving him in nothing but his briefs and T-shirt.

"Uncuff me and I'll do the rest myself," Kasuka tried, hoping to preserve his dignity for a while longer, but Slon ignored him and did the same to the torn T-shirt. He knew what came next and he thought about kicking Slon in the face, but a threatening glare from his captor froze him in place. Kasuka’s heart sped up when Slon's bandaged fingers slipped inside the waistband of his briefs and the man pulled them down roughly, exposing him to the cold air and a curious eye.

The feeling of humiliation suddenly intensified but Kasuka continued to watch Slon as the man cut them off and pocketed the switchblade. He thought about trying to get his hands on it, but a threatening growl from Slon made him change his mind. The man then turned him to the side and removed the handcuffs, pocketing those too before picking up the ruined pile of clothes and standing up. 

"Now get up and go shower, unless you want me to give you a hand with that."

Kasuka ignored the half mocking, half threatening offer and pushed himself to one elbow and then to a sitting position. Next, he placed his left palm on the floor to get up, but Slon grabbed him by the arm and roughly pulled him to his feet.

"I can walk by myself," Kasuka said, eyes fixed on the bandaged hand on his arm. Slon released him and Kasuka waited until the man left before limping in the direction of the bathroom. The chain rattled with every step he took but he ignored it since there was nothing he could do about it at that moment. At least it was long enough to allow him access inside the small bathroom and that was more than he could ask for considering how much the man probably hated him.

The first thing he did was to relieve himself and that’s when he saw that he was pissing blood, but he didn't dwell on it since it sometimes happened after a beating. Carefully, he stepped into the shower and turned the faucet but the water was mostly lukewarm and not very pleasant to bathe in. The cuts and scratches he got from the fall stung pretty badly but the worst part came when he had to clean up his bleeding wrists. The handcuffs had bitten deep into his skin and he hoped that Slon wouldn't put the hinged ones back on since they allowed very little mobility and would only serve to further exacerbate his injuries.

Since he had an idea about what awaited him once he would be done with the shower, Kasuka took his time even though he wanted nothing more than to lie down and allow his battered body to rest and recover. After a while though, when he was having a very hard time standing and the water had long since turned icy cold, he dried himself and limped out of the bathroom, inwardly sighing in relief when he didn’t find Slon there. He grabbed the yukata with stiff cold fingers and wrapped it around himself, sloppily securing it with the provided obi moments before his legs finally gave out from under him and he collapsed on the bed, panting in exhaustion.

As he lay there shivering from the cold, he thought about how much he wanted to hold Ruri in his arms and wondered if he’d ever see her again, but the sounds of approaching footsteps derailed his thoughts to the present. He pushed himself to a sitting position, eyes glued to the door as he watched, nearly choking with dread, the handle being pressed and Slon walking in, wearing what appeared to be another set of clothes and bandages.

The man approached the bed and captured one of Kasuka’s wrists, inspecting the damage for a few moments before releasing the still bleeding wrist. “I’ll be right back,” he announced and walked out of the room, not even bothering to close it.

Kasuka tried not to think about it since he couldn’t escape anyway and instead focused on chasing away the sensation of ants crawling beneath his skin. The man disgusted him more than anyone in the world and it was the reason why Slon touching any part of his body made him feel slightly nauseous. Even so, he didn’t move when the man came back to disinfect and bandage his wrists. He continued to sit there, watching Slon who was now sitting on the bed next to him and wondering if mentioning the DVD would be enough to force the man to release him. Slon might not believe him but it was still worth a try. “If you let me go now, I give you my word that I won’t mention your name.” 

“You can’t bargain your way out of this,” Slon said as he released Kasuka’s now bandaged right wrist and started to work on the other one.

“I made arrangements so that if anything ever happens to me, the video Izaya took that day will be released to the media.” For a moment, when Slon’s whole frame froze, Kasuka thought he might’ve scared him, but the man’s next words shattered any hope he had of walking out of there anytime soon.

“I think I’d really like to see that treacherous Orihara bastard find a way out of that one,” the Russian said, almost sounding excited at the prospect of Izaya becoming the target of everyone’s hatred.

“Izaya won’t be the only one who will suffer,” Kasuka tried to argue, but the man’s threatening glare told him that it was best to keep his mouth shut.

“All done,” Slon said and released the now bandaged wrist, his hand shooting forward a moment later and capturing Kasuka’s jaw before his prisoner could get away. “You’re very pretty,” he remarked, turning the bruised face to one side and then the other. “I really don’t understand how some Japanese men can be this pretty. I swear! You’re prettier than many of the women I’ve met!”

Kasuka’s face remained expressionless but his heart sped up until it was ratcheting inside his chest, and even though his hands were itching to form a fist and punch Slon in the face, he was very much aware that he was far too injured to get into a fistfight with the much bigger man. In the end, he chose not to do anything.

“I really liked you in the role of the vampire ninja Carmilla Saizuo.”

“Thank you,” Kasuka stated simply. A moment later Slon released him and Kasuka almost couldn’t believe it when the man stood up and headed for the door. Without another word, Slon walked out, locked the door behind him and turned off the light, leaving Kasuka in almost complete darkness to wonder when was the inevitable going to happen and the man would come after him.

***

Heiwajima Namiko couldn’t believe that so much misfortune had befallen her family in such a short amount of time. First, her eldest son ended up in a coma after being attacked and now her youngest had been kidnapped by who knew what psychopath or thug. Her eyes drifted to the box in her hands and they lingered there for a few moments until the elevator doors opened and she made her way to her son’s apartment. She knocked on the door and was finally allowed inside after showing her ID to the police officer who had opened it. She found her husband and Ruri in the living room, one staring out the window while the other was staring into space. Her husband soon noticed her and he got up and took her in his arms to comfort her.

“They have the best men working on the case. I’m sure they’ll find him soon,” Kichirou said and it was then when Ruri realized that Heiwajima Namiko had arrived and she moved away from the window.

“Yuuhei is strong,” Ruri said after approaching the couple. “If anyone can escape, it’s him.”

With tears running down her cheeks, Namiko nodded and asked Ruri if she could talk to her in private. Ruri nodded as well and they made their way to the kitchen where they sat down at the table, but not before closing the door to make sure that no one could hear them. The older woman then placed the box on the table and raised her head to look Ruri in the eyes.

“My son gave this to me a while back and asked me to keep it safe. He also told me to give this to you when the time came,” Namiko said and pushed the box in Ruri’s direction. “Back then, I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but now I can’t help but think that he knew something bad would happen to him.”

Ruri inspected the box and a simple look at the keyhole told her that what lay inside was the DVD Kasuka had mentioned before. “Thank you,” she said as she picked up the box and raised it to her chest. With it, she would either get Kasuka back or ruin Izaya.

***

After visiting the Seisonkaku Villa in Kanazawa, Izaya made his way back to the hotel. He’d visited many cities and tourist attractions in the months he’d been away from Tokyo and he figured that it was probably time to end his vacation sometimes during the next few days before Namie really hired someone to bring him back by force since he wouldn’t put it past the woman to do it after the last threatening message he’d received.

He was just about ready to take a shower when an announcement came on TV and Izaya froze in the middle of the room, eyes widening and T-shirt slipping from weak fingers when he heard that Hanejima Yuuhei had been kidnapped the night before from his apartment building’s parking lot. “Nononono,” he kept repeating the word as the reporter went on to say that a van had been stolen from one of the people living in the building and that it had most likely been used to transport the actor. It continued with the woman giving a description of the van and asking anyone who’d seen it to call the police right away.

Izaya started pacing around the room, biting his nails and trying to figure out what he needed to do to stop the DVD from being released to the media now that something had happened to Kasuka. He didn’t know who had it but if there was someone who knew, it had to be Hijiribe Ruri. Unfortunately, he didn’t know her phone number, but then again he doubted he could convince her of anything over the phone so he concluded that he’d have to head back to Tokyo that very day.

Without wasting another second, he went into the bathroom, showered, packed up his suitcase and made his way to the station. The train wouldn’t be there for another fifteen or so minutes, so he fished out the phone, pressed the name of the person he wanted to talk to and brought it to his ear.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end said, the silence stretching for a while until it got shattered by the same person speaking again. “Nakura-san, what’s wrong?”

“I didn’t do it,” Izaya said in a shaky voice as he nervously tightened his grip around the switchblade safely tucked inside the left pocket of his jacket.

“You didn’t do what?” the woman asked in a calm, almost soothing voice.

Instead of answering right away, Izaya’s shoulders drooped and he leaned forwards to rest his elbows on his thighs. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he said and was about to end the call when the woman’s request for him to wait convinced him to bring the phone back to his ear.

“It’s been nearly a week since we started talking and yet there hasn’t been one thing you told me about yourself, so why don’t we start with you telling me what’s wrong?”

No answer.

“Therapy only works if you cooperate.”

A bitter laugh erupted past Izaya’s lips and he released the switchblade so that he could run his twitchy hand through still wet raven locks. “You expect me to tell a stranger my deepest fears and my most inner secrets?” he asked mockingly.

“Yes, that’s the idea.”

Izaya’s hand tightened into his hair and he pulled at it weakly. “You see, Fujita-san, I can’t do that.”

The woman sighed into the phone. “Need I remind you, Nakura-san, that you were the one who called me and insisted we talked even after I clearly stated that I don’t do therapy over the phone?”

Izaya began chewing on his bottom lip in frustration since opening up to people, even if they were therapists, wasn’t something he saw himself doing. Fujita Shizuka, whom he’d picked because he had a twisted sense of humor, was right though, so after thinking how to go about explaining the situation, Izaya took a deep breath and began. “There is something I did that I shouldn’t have done.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“I… made a lot of mistakes,” Izaya said and the words were followed by a humorless laugh.

“No one is perfect, Nakura-san, so it’s only natural that we make mistakes. You don’t have to punish yourself because you’re not perfect. We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we? Humans are imperfect creatures, no matter how much we sometimes try to tell ourselves otherwise.”

“It’s not what you think,” Izaya said, chuckling darkly into the phone.

“Then what is it?”

“What I regret is not being ruthless enough.”

”In general or…?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” Izaya said and ended the call. He then pocketed the phone, picked up the suitcase and made his way to the train station.

***

“What are you doing here?” Izaya asked in a surprised voice when he walked into his apartment and found Namie there.

“What I can,” she hissed the answer, “since a certain someone thought it’d be a good idea to one day pack a bag and disappear.” Without taking her eyes off of Izaya, she got up, went around the desk and leaned against it, folding her arms in front of her chest and narrowing her eyes into slits. “I find it hard to believe that you coming back soon after Hanejima Yuuhei has been kidnapped is just a coincidence.”

Izaya shrugged in an attempt to hide how tense he felt as Namie’s scrutinizing stare remained glued to him. “Coincidences happen.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Namie stated.

“You’re entitled to your opinion, even if it’s wrong,” Izaya said and released his hold on the suitcase’s handle.

Namie let out a sound of disgust and picked up the phone while her lazy boss made his way up the stairs. “The thing we talked about yesterday, it’s off,” she told the person on the other end. “Yes, you can keep the deposit.”

Now, more than ever, after hearing her conversation, Izaya was certain that Namie had seriously called someone to either kill him or bring him back. The thought made him shudder at first and then laugh. Namie was truly a terrifying woman.

***

Ruri was sitting on the couch of her apartment, half-closed eyes glued to the DVD she’d placed on the coffee table after taking it out of the box she’d received from Kasuka’s mother. She was debating whether or not to watch it before taking it to the media when she heard the sound of the doorbell going off.

After checking who was the person looking for her, she went back to the living room, put the DVD back into the box and carried it to her room where she placed it on the nightstand. After all, Izaya didn’t need to know that she had it. She then went back to the door and opened it. “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?” Izaya asked, struggling not to show just how nervous he was.

Ruri moved to the side and allowed the man inside, not at all worried since she could easily kill him if he tried anything funny.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” Izaya said as he paced around the monster’s living room, “but I have nothing to do with Kasuka’s disappearance.”

“I don’t believe you,” Ruri said and took a seat on the couch, her eyes never leaving the man she’d tried to kill before.

Izaya stopped pacing and turned to her. “Did Kasuka ever mention a video to you?”

Ruri nodded.

“Have you seen it?” Izaya asked and tried to swallow the lump stuck in his throat. If Ruri had seen it, then the monstrous woman might kill him out of anger, but if she hadn’t, then she wouldn’t believe that he had nothing to do with it. Either way, he was screwed.

“No.”

“If you do, you’ll understand why anything happening to Kasuka and consequently the video being released to the media would not benefit me in any way,” he said in an attempt to make her understand, but Hijiribe Ruri, just like Kasuka, was a freak and he couldn’t read her at all.

“You have until tomorrow night to give me Yuuhei back,” she told Izaya in a monotone voice even though on the inside she wanted nothing more than to get up and tear the man apart with her bare hands for most likely having taken away the man she loved.

“What part of ‘I didn’t do it’ don’t you understand?” Izaya asked, sounding slightly exasperated, but Ruri got up and motioned for him to leave.

Overcome with blind fury, Izaya nearly flicked open his switchblade and attacked, but luckily he managed to stop himself and by doing so walk out of there alive. Hijiribe Ruri’s strength and speed were not normal and Izaya doubted that he could take her down before she took him down. He stormed out of the building, panting heavily since he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs with how angry he was. Once outside, he continued to stand there in front of the building for a while longer, trying to figure out what to do.

After a while, when the anger lowered in intensity, Izaya felt a panic attack starting to creep at the edges of his mind, but he fought to push it back while at the same time wondering if he could figure out who had kidnapped Kasuka. He probably could, given enough time, but he had a little over a day and he knew that it was impossible to find the culprit in such a short amount of time. What he knew however, without a shadow of a doubt, was that he hated the Heiwajimas and anyone related to them.

His heart sped up at the thought of his humans seeing the video and he was suddenly overcome with nausea as he imagined his sisters, parents, acquaintances, clients and everyone else looking at him with disgust and most likely thinking that he’d raped Hanejima Yuuhei. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to people hating him or thinking lowly of him, but the idea of being seen as the monster when he’d been the victim was enough to make him want to scream in rage. The world around him started to spin moments later and he tried to get to a nearby bench, but the ground shifted beneath his feet before he could reach it and he ended up collapsing, his vision fading to black as he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he came back to his sense there were two unknown faces staring worriedly at him, one of them placing a wet hand on his forehead while the other waved a magazine in front of his face. Izaya blinked a couple of times, trying to remember what had happened, and attempted to get up, but the man pushed him down gently while the woman told him to take it easy.

“Did I…”

“You passed out,” the woman said softly as she raised Izaya’s head and brought a bottle of water to his lips.

Instead of parting them and taking a sip, Izaya pushed the bottle away. “I don’t need it,” he assured her and moved to a sitting position against their protests, only now realizing that he was sitting on the bench he’d been struggling to reach earlier. “Thanks for your help,” he then added as he stood up and hurried away from there since the embarrassment of having passed out in the middle of the street was almost too much to bear.

He headed straight to the train station, not stopping even when he heard Kadota call his name from across the street since he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. He didn’t like the idea of running away, but he knew there’d be no place for him in Tokyo, or even Japan, the second his humans saw the recording. Not even the police officers he had in his pocket were powerful enough to get him out of such a situation, which meant that he was utterly screwed if he stayed.

He still had time though; time to do one last thing before disappearing for good, so he fished out his phone and called Ayato.

“Orihara-san, long time no talk!”

“It hasn’t been that long. Anyway, I have a question for you.”

“Sure, what is it?” the kid asked, feeling excited at the prospect of doing stuff for Orihara Izaya again.

“What would be the best way to get past several people and bodyguards without killing them?” Izaya asked in a low voice as to not get the attention of the other passengers inside the train.

“Send me in and I’ll get it done,” Ayato promised.

Izaya sighed and rolled his eyes since he’d been expecting that answer. Ayato was a psychopath who wouldn’t throw away the chance to hurt people, especially if he got money while doing it. “I don’t want them to get hurt.”

“Hmm, in that case, use knockout gas grenades and wear a mask,” Ayato suggested.

Izaya’s eyes lit up, but he didn’t have either of those and he didn’t know where he could acquire them in such a short amount of time.

As if guessing his dilemma, Ayato continued. “I can get them for you tonight, but it’ll cost you.”

“Call me when you have them.”

***

“Who do you want to get to in there?” Ayato asked after he stopped the bike in front of the hospital and Izaya got up, much like that time when they’d followed Hanejima Yuuhei.

“It doesn’t concern you,” Izaya said as he picked up the bag with the mask and the knockout grenade. “Now get in there and distract them so that I can sneak in.” Ayato nodded excitedly and Izaya rolled his eyes. “Just don’t kill anyone.”

“Okay~” Ayato promised and made his way inside the hospital.

Izaya didn’t have to wait long because not even a minute later the kid ran out the door with the guard shouting at him to stop. He pulled the hood over his head and slipped inside, the few people there too busy watching the show to notice him. He took the stairs and then he made sure there was no one on the hallway besides the two bodyguards before he put on the mask, took out the grenade and sent it rolling in their direction. He heard coughing and some commotion and then everything went quiet. Now certain that the guards had been knocked out, he hurried in the direction of the door so that he could get inside the room before the smoke blocking the camera’s view cleared.

Izaya hadn’t really thought about what he would find in there, but an unconscious beast hooked to machines and looking so thin and weak was not one of them. Even when thinking about a comatose Shizuo, Izaya had imagined the beast the way he remembered him looking that last time they had talked to each other when he’d left him to bleed to death. The weak thing lying in bed, with the brown roots of his hair showing and the thin hands resting on top of the blanket, wasn’t the beast he knew.

Shocked beyond words, Izaya took off the mask, pulled out the switchblade and flicked it open, moving closer to the bed to deliver the killing blow. It was what he’d gone there to do, and yet, as he raised the hands tightly holding the switchblade high into the air above Shizuo’s chest and tried to plunge the knife’s blade into the beast’s still beating heart, he found himself stopping at the last moment and staggering backwards. His own heart hammered wildly inside his chest and it took him a while to realize that the reason he’d stopped was because Shizuo looked much too human and unnaturally vulnerable. As he stood there, struggling to get air into his lungs while his hands trembled with the need to strangle the beast to death, Izaya realized that the problem lay in the fact that he couldn’t reconcile the image of the beast he’d known for nearly a decade with the pathetic thing lying in that hospital bed.

He slumped into the chair next to the bed, his eyes never leaving Shizuo’s form, and laughed, the hollow disturbing sound resonating throughout the hospital room. “Why didn’t you just bleed to death back then?” Izaya hissed the words and raised the switchblade again, but he found that he lacked the will to thrust it deep into Shizuo’s heart. “Stupid beast.”

Said stupid beast wasn’t answering though, and Izaya, annoyed that Shizuo wasn’t opening those ugly pale brown eyes of his, got up, curled his fingers into the material of Shizuo’s shirt and started to shake him. “Wake up, you protozoan, so that you can see me seconds before I end your pathetic existence once and for all.”

Izaya’s eyes darted to the heart monitor which showed no change.

“Did you hear me? Wake up, if not to die then to at least tell that stupid monster your brother has for a girlfriend that I didn’t kidnap the freak,” Izaya hissed and shook Shizuo harder. Seeing no reaction, he pulled back the hand still holding the switchblade and pressed it to Shizuo’s neck. “I’m going to slit your throat if you don’t wake up.” Izaya’s frown deepened. “Shizu-chan, you’re not human enough to be in a coma.”

He pushed the sharp edge deeper into the monster’s throat but stopped the moment the switchblade tasted blood. “Really, Shizu-chan, this is disgusting. I almost feel like puking.”

The constant beeping on the monitor nearly made Izaya want to turn and shatter it but he kept his eyes on the beast, almost finding it hard to believe that someone this pathetic had managed to break him. And then, as he continued to stare at the beast’s face, one hand on the switchblade pressed against the blonde’s neck and the other curled into the man’s shirt, he realized that he didn’t feel like killing Shizuo anymore. “I can’t help but wonder, you know? What if Kasuka is being tortured right now? Maybe it’s some psychopath with a fetish for Hanejima Yuuhei,” Izaya said in a malicious voice, followed by a sound of annoyance when he got no response.

“You really can’t hear me, can you? Stupid protozoan!” he hissed and pulled back his hands before slashing Shizuo across the chest just like he’d done the first time they exchanged words back when they had no idea that one day things would go so wrong between them.

“You know what? I don’t want you to die anymore. In fact, I hope you wake up so that when they find your precious brother’s corpse,” Izaya stated in a cold tone while wiping the blade on the blanket covering the unmoving body, “you’ll be there to see it and experience what it’s like to break into more pieces that you could ever count.”

Tearing his eyes away from the blood flowing out of the cut he’d just made, Izaya picked up the gas mask and walked out of the room after giving Shizuo one last look.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this is karma,” he mused, but by then he was too far away to hear the wailing sound of the heart monitor.

Notes:

So I gave Majora this chapter to beta and at some point...

LegendofMajora: For a moment there I just thought I read Slon slipping his fingers inside Kasuka's asshole and I was like what the fuuuuuuuuuck!
PendulumDeath: xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
PendulumDeath: fu
PendulumDeath: I can't unsee that.
LegendofMajora: You scared the shit out of me.
LegendofMajora: I'm dying! xDDD

From there it escalated quickly into cow puns because I once showed Majora an image of Kasuka next to a screenshot of Slon where he was talking about cows. Never underestimate Majora's ability to sniff out crack pairings! XDDD

Chapter 67: St. Anger

Before he even opened his eyes, Shizuo raised his hands and covered his ears to block the irritating sound coming from somewhere on his left. He had no idea what was going on, but when the sound didn’t stop and instead seemed to increase in frequency and intensity, he turned his head and glowered at the thing making his pounding headache a thousand times worse. It hurt to open his eyes, let alone look at the monitor, but he kept blinking, trying to get accustomed to the light.

His burning eyes then drifted over to his body and he noticed the blood and the cut on his chest. For some reason, the wires attached to his body bothered him more so he ripped them off with trembling hands, hissing in discomfort and then wincing when the machine flat-lined as a result of the action. His mouth was as dry as a desert, he was starving and the simple act of breathing felt exhausting―going back to sleep sounded like a good idea―but the need to see Kasuka overruled everything else and he stood up, legs trembling and threatening to give out from under him before he could even take a step.

Growling low in his throat, Shizuo used the bed and then the wall as support as he made his way to the door, bits and pieces of his life, as well as what his actions had led to, coming back with a vengeance and increasing the sensation of nausea causing him to sway on his feet. Outside he found two men lying on the floor, unconscious, but he ignored them and walked past them, trying to find the elevator in a place he did not recognize. Luckily, the rattling sound of the doors opening told him which direction to take, so he steered left around the corner and nearly bumped into one of the nurses.

“Hanejima-san, you’re awake! Why aren’t you in bed?!” she screeched the question, startled, and grabbed him by the arm when she saw that he was unsteady on his legs.

It took a while until his brain finally made sense of what the woman was asking, but when it finally did, Shizuo couldn’t understand why someone would call him by a name that was not his. His thoughts were a jumbled mess and yet the name sounded familiar enough to jolt back a few more memories and help him recall that Kasuka was Hanejima Yuuhei. “Where am I?” he asked, throat dry and voice cracking. It hurt to speak, to see, and to generally be alive when he was sure that he was supposed to be dead.

“You’re at Higashi General Hospital,” the nurse answered and tried to steer him back to his room, but the man was much stronger than he looked even in his weakened state.

Shizuo’s brows furrowed and he frowned. “I’ve never heard this name before. Where is this place?” he asked slowly as he strained to speak.

“This hospital is situated in the Saitama prefecture. Now that I’ve answered your questions, can we please go back to your room? You’re bleeding, Hanejima-san, and I must take care of your wound. How did you even get it anyway?”

Shizuo weakly shook his head and immediately regretted it when the dizziness increased. “It’s fine; I’ll be okay, I just… I need to get back to Tokyo.”

“And you will, as soon as I sew the cut and a doctor takes a look at you,” she promised, smiling, and felt a bit of relief when the patient turned around and started walking back to his room. Finding him walking had been a big enough shock, but the biggest one came when she saw the two unconscious bodyguards lying in front of the door. “What happened here?” she gasped and hurried to check on the men, all the while wondering if the person who’d done this was still around.

“I don’t know,” Shizuo said as he made his way past the unconscious men. “But there’s no one inside the room,” he then added, sensing her fear.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised before she turned on her heels and darted in the direction of the elevator.

Shizuo sat down on the bed and ran a shaky hand through his hair which seemed much longer than usual. His eyes then drifted back to his bleeding chest and he frowned, wondering how it got there. It was in the same place Izaya had cut before, but it made no sense for the flea to only cut him and leave without finishing the job. Then again, wasn’t he supposed to be dead?

He remembered Izaya, the fear, the guilt, the regret, the rage, and then more guilt, a sea of it, enough to drown in it, as well as the sensation of dying right before seeing a faceless apparition in the sun’s setting light. Many things about that day were still hazy, like some of the things Izaya had said, but they were slowly coming back to him, especially the hateful words and the insults. What he most clearly remembered though was Izaya talking about what Kasuka had been through while growing up and it was the reason why Shizuo was so desperate to go back to Tokyo. He was choking with guilt and he wanted to apologize to his little brother.

The sounds of footsteps and voices were too loud in his ears as several hospital employees showed up to check on him and the unconscious guards, but Shizuo was having a hard time focusing because of the splitting headache and because he wanted to leave already. Irritated that the doctor was wasting his time asking questions, Shizuo pushed the man aside and tried to get up, but two hospital employees grabbed him by the arms and the doctor injected him with something that made him feel even weaker then before. For a few moments, after the needle was pulled out of his arm, they all remained silent, waiting for what they believed would be the inevitable, but their expressions soon turned into ones of surprise when their patient continued to stand instead of being rendered unconscious. Clearly, they hadn’t heard of Heiwajima Shizuo.

A vein popped beneath the skin of Shizuo’s forehead. “You know what happens to people who piss me off?” he growled the question, his tone alone making some of them flinch. Just because he felt weak, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t easily break their necks. “I beat them up within an inch of their lives!” he roared and wrenched his right arm free, the nurse letting out a sound of fear and dropping the needle she’d just finished preparing for sewing up the wound. “Try that again and I’ll shove the syringe down your throat,” Shizuo warned the doctor who was backing away slowly.

“Hanejima-san, it’s important to―”

“Out,” Shizuo hissed in a low, dangerous voice.

The doctor nervously raised his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “I’ll come back later,” he said and motioned for the men accompanying him to follow.

Despite being a bit worried for her safety, the nurse stayed behind.

“My clothes, where are they?” Shizuo asked the woman readying a new needle and thread.

“I don’t know, but there might be some in the box Hanejima Yuuhei-san left behind,” she said and pointed to her right.

Shizuo’s eyes followed her movement and they fell upon a box placed on a chair near the window. “Thank you,” he said and crackled a small smile which soon fell and was replaced by a frown when Izaya’s words about his little brother being a target because of him rang in his head. He was much too torn by guilt after that to pay much attention to the things around him, but he noticed at some point that the nurse had finished disinfecting the cut and began sewing it up. Izaya came to mind then and he wondered if the flea knew that the enemy he’d tried to kill was still alive. A furious Izaya would explain the unconscious guards and the cut, but it didn’t explain why the man hadn’t finished him off.

“All done,” the nurse said after she finished bandaging Shizuo’s chest. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go call the doctor so that he can take a look at you.”

Shizuo nodded even though he had no intention of waiting. As soon as she was out of view, he got up, opened the box and took out the new pair of shoes and the clothes, quickly getting dressed, leaving the room and then going down the stairs before the nurse or the doctor had a chance to come back. He couldn’t understand why he was feeling so weak―it wasn’t like he hadn’t been injured before―and he couldn’t help but wonder for how long he’d been out since it felt as though his muscles hadn’t been put to use in a very long time. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of the room, he might’ve remembered to check the stab wound on his leg to get an idea about the time frame. Unfortunately, it was too late now and he couldn’t pull down his pants and take a look at it when finding the back exit was his number one priority.

It felt stupid to do this instead of walking out the front door, but he didn’t want to hurt the hospital employees who would surely try to stop him. The chilly night air felt good against his skin when he stepped out of the building and he took a moment to close his eyes and just breathe in the fresh air before he opened them again, determined to find his way back to Tokyo. The fact that Kasuka had even left him money and a phone was proof of how well his little brother knew him, but the battery was dead and he couldn’t call anyone even if he wanted.

Shizuo didn’t know the layout of the city, but getting further away from the hospital as soon as possible seemed like a good idea so he started walking down the street leading away from the building, his frown deepening every time his muscles spasmed and his limbs twitched. His legs were the worst and at times it felt as though they were getting ripped apart from the inside, but he continued to move forward, only stopping to ask for directions on how to get to the train station.

When he finally got there, gulping water from a bottle he’d just bought, he sat down on a bench and waited for the train to arrive, all the while struggling to put his jumbled thoughts into order since his mind was still mostly hazy when it came to a lot of things. There were gaps in some of his memories, like he couldn’t remember why Izaya was crying or what he was saying before thrusting the needle into his neck, but most things were slowly coming back to him the more he thought about them even if a part of him wished he wouldn’t have remembered a thing.

Despite that, once he got on the train, Shizuo spent most of the time it took to get back to Tokyo trying to recover as many of his memories as he possibly could, but his thoughts kept going back to Kasuka and the few times he recalled seeing his little brother sporting a bruise or two. Kasuka would always say that older children had bullied him for money, but it seemed that the truth was much worse than that. It made Shizuo wonder, had he known back then, would he have tried harder to control his anger? Then again, it no longer mattered. He couldn’t go back and change the past, just as he couldn’t erase what he’d done to Izaya.

Once again, Shizuo didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings as he made his way to Kasuka’s apartment, but he couldn’t help but notice the strange looks some people were giving him and the sounds of people taking his picture with their phones. Normally, he would’ve beaten them to a bloody pulp, but apologizing to Kasuka was far more important so he chose to ignore them even if he was tempted to break their phones and send them flying.

Shizuo didn’t think his day could get any worse, but he was proven wrong when he saw the sea of reporters outside the building where Kasuka lived. He needed a moment to calm down so he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before heading towards the entrance. Halfway there, a man wearing dark glasses and a suit, who until then had been standing near a car, approached him.

“Heiwajima Shizuo-san?”

“Move,” Shizuo warned. “I don’t have time right now.”

“Ruri-san sent me,” the man told him. “She’s waiting for you inside the car. Could you please go see her? It’s urgent.”

Shizuo was about to tell him to get lost, since it wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to set up a trap for him, but the person inside the car lowered the dark-tinted window, revealing that Hijiribe Ruri was indeed waiting for him.

“Go ahead, please,” the man, who was actually the driver, told Shizuo. “I’ll wait here.”

Frowning, Shizuo made his way to the car, opened the door and sat down in the back.

Ruri, who’d been hurt by Shizuo before―back when she was fighting one of the men sent by Yadogiri Jinai to capture her―had developed a phobia towards the blond after the incident, and even though she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, she still feared him. Every time she’d seen Shizuo after that had been in Kasuka’s presence, which made it more bearable, but now, alone with only Ikebukuro’s strongest inside a car, she couldn’t help but tremble and try to move as far away from the man as possible.

“It’s good to see you’re doing well. I was really worried when you got shot,” Shizuo said in an attempt to break the ice when he noticed how nervous she saw.

“I’m f-fine,” Ruri answered in a trembling voice. "They called me from the h-hospital to let me know you woke up. Yuuhei must've given them my number. I'm glad he did and I'm also glad that Shizuo-san woke up, but we have a problem.”

Shizuo, swallowing the lump in his throat, hoped that the eerily familiar thing Ruri was holding wasn’t what he thought it was; he didn’t know how much more he could take. “What’s wrong?” he asked reluctantly.

Quivering delicate fingers tightened around the case holding the DVD inside. “I believe Orihara Izaya is the one who kidnapped Yuuhei.”

For a few moments, Shizuo simply could not breathe. He remembered what Izaya had tried to do last time Kasuka had gone missing and he was overcome by the sudden need to throw up.

“But I’ll get him back,” Ruri continued in a more confident voice as she raised the DVD. “I told Orihara Izaya that he has until tonight to bring Yuuhei back. If he doesn’t, this DVD will end up in the hands of the media.”

Shizuo couldn’t even speak anymore because of how terrified he was of what Izaya might do, of what he might have already done, and when he tried to speak, to get the confirmation that it was indeed the DVD Izaya had sent him in the past, he couldn’t get his voice to come out. All he could think about was the horror his brother might be going through at that very moment.

“Shizuo-san, do you know what’s on it?” Ruri inquired as she handed him the DVD.

Shizuo took it with trembling hands and inspected it, confirming what he already suspected.

“Yeah,” he answered in a tormented voice.

“I wanted to watch it, but Yuuhei said that he’d rather I never see it,” Ruri confessed as she tried to take back the DVD, but Shizuo moved it out of her reach. “Shizuo-san…?”

“I can fix this. I will fix this,” Shizuo promised.

If it had been anyone else, Ruri would’ve torn them apart with her bare hands, but the man holding Kasuka’s fate in his hands was Heiwajima Shizuo and Ruri knew that Kasuka’s brother would do anything to get him back. “Good luck.”

***

Izaya spent the entire night and most of the morning getting his affairs in order. He’d long since made arrangements for a new life if something like this were to happen, so the only thing left for him to do was visit the only person who seemed to give a damn about him. Almost two months had passed since he’d last spoken to Shinra and Izaya had to admit that he missed the doctor. Thinking about his own experience with broken bones, Izaya concluded that Shinra’s had most likely healed which meant that the doctor would not be as grumpy when he went to see him.

Strangely enough, he was less heartbroken about leaving Tokyo than he thought he’d be. He guessed that experiencing the peace and quiet away from it had given him a new perspective, one he didn’t have before. Or perhaps he’d simply resigned himself to his fate.

In the meantime, Izaya just wanted to enjoy the view for a while longer, knowing that he’d never again be able to see Shinjuku from behind the windows of his apartment. Some people might’ve stayed back and tried to fight it, but Izaya knew that no one would believe him, not even his sisters. In fact, he expected Mairu and Kururi to seriously try to kill him and he wanted to avoid having to fight them at all costs even though he didn’t think he loved them the way most people loved their siblings.

He was just about to take a sip from the dark coffee Namie had prepared that morning―before he’d told her to leave―when he heard the doorbell. There was no one besides Shinra he wanted to see, so he raised the cup and tried again, but that person pressed the door handle, making Izaya lower the cup with a frown and turn to the door, glowering while wondering who had the audacity to try to get inside uninvited.

As if to answer his question, there was a creaking sound as the lock broke and Izaya nearly dropped the cup when he saw the person walking in, their eyes meeting and both of them freezing for what felt like an eternity before Shizuo closed the door―more like pushed it―behind him and made his way further inside the apartment. His hands started to quiver so he placed the cup on the desk and stood up from his chair, shocked to see that the man had woken up.

Seeing Shizuo now, in the natural light as opposed to the weak one inside the hospital room, the man looking like he was about to croak, Izaya thought that he might just have a chance to get out of there alive before Shizuo could finish him off; if the brute was there to finish him off. Just because Shizuo looked like shit, it didn’t mean that the beast wouldn’t be able to throw him out the window without breaking a sweat. He couldn’t be sure how much the protozoan knew about what was going on, but it didn’t matter because Shizuo had plenty of reasons to finish him off anyway and he didn’t want to risk it. Still, Izaya couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of the beast waking up so soon after his visit. “How’s your chest?” he asked, smirking. “I wanted to leave you a goodbye present, since I’m leaving and all that.”

It took Shizuo everything he had to not charge at Izaya and twist the bastard’s neck, and as he stood there, glaring at the man with so much hatred that his limbs were shaking harder than before with the effort it took to hold himself back, Shizuo realized that using force wouldn’t get him anything because Izaya played dirty and used the people Shizuo loved against him. The fact that Izaya knew about the DVD and the fact that Kasuka was still missing meant that the son of a bitch was willing to pay any price if it got him the revenge he’d always wanted.

Shizuo realized then, as he watched Izaya pull out his switchblade and flicking it open while smirking wildly, that Izaya was ready to fight him to the death; and he had an epiphany. The only way to save Kasuka was to give the flea what the bastard had always wanted. Slowly, Shizuo raised his hands and closed his eyes. “I won’t fight back, so please just let my brother go.”

Without lowering the switchblade, Izaya started laughing in disbelief. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he finally asked, now pouting a bit because the idiot was insulting his intelligence by assuming he’d go after the freak even if it meant ruining his own life.

“I think you’re a lot of things, you goddam bastard, but stupid isn’t one of them,” Shizuo admitted, still not opening his eyes. Unfortunately, in his state, with his thoughts still pretty jumbled up and the haze he was constantly feeling not going away anytime soon, Shizuo had assumed that Izaya was talking about him having offered up his life as being a trap.

At Shizuo’s confession, Izaya’s pout turned into a smirk. For some reason, the idea of toying with Shizuo for a bit instead of explaining the situation right away as he should’ve done, sounded extremely appealing. He guessed that it was that small sadistic part of him wanting to have a bit of fun, and yet he couldn’t deny how irritated he felt about the whole situation. “And you think that me taking your pathetic life is enough to satisfy me?” he hissed the question. “If I wanted your life, I could’ve taken it back at the hospital, but you see, your life is no longer enough,” he announced, now confident that the idiot couldn’t kill him as long as he believed that his archenemy had taken his brother.

“It seemed to be enough when you stabbed me and left me to bleed to death,” Shizuo growled the words and opened his eyes, itching to ball his hands into fists and punch Izaya until the bastard’s skull caved in. Unfortunately, he knew that such a thing wouldn’t get him anything, so instead he lowered his hands, swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth and knelt down on the floor, choosing to humiliate himself by begging in the hope of saving his little brother. “Please let my brother go.”

Izaya’s jaw fell and it took him a few moments to come back to his senses and realize that Heiwajima Shizuo, the man who had broken him, was down on his knees, choosing to humiliate himself if it meant saving his brother. He should’ve felt happy that Shizuo was begging, but all he felt was burning anger because it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. “You… you!” Izaya hissed in a voice laced with spite and bitterness as he tightened his hold around the switchblade’s handle and moved in Shizuo’s direction until he was standing in front of the man.

“I’ll do anything, just please let him go,” Shizuo repeated as he looked up at the man whose eyes burned with such hatred that only Shizuo’s enmity towards him would ever be able to match it in intensity. Normally, Shizuo wouldn’t have had a problem with confronting the man, but with Kasuka missing, he felt utterly powerless. No, he was utterly powerless. The DVD was useless. In fact, if released, it would only do more bad than good, so without hesitation, he pulled it out of his jacket and handed it to a rather shocked Izaya who took it in his right hand, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Is this…?”

Shizuo nodded. “Please let Kasuka go. I’ll do anything. I won’t fight back. You can do whatever you want, just please don’t hurt him,” he begged again, his eyes starting to burn with the beginning of tears. The humiliation, the hopelessness, it was all too much. Taking advantage of the fact that Izaya was shocked, his arm shot forward and he wrenched the switchblade out of Izaya’s hand, making the man yelp in fear and move backwards until he hit the desk, those red eyes widening like never before.

“W-What are you doing?” Izaya stuttered, holding the DVD tightly to his chest.

Without answering, Shizuo turned the switchblade in his palm so that the tip was pointed in his direction. “You don’t even have to dirty your hands; I’ll do it myself. Just please let my brother go. I should’ve died when you left to me to bleed anyway. You said it yourself. I need to die so that no more people will end up suffering because of me.”

Stunned by the development, Izaya couldn’t say a word. All he could think about was that he no longer had to leave Tokyo.

“Will you let my brother go?” Shizuo asked in a shaky voice. He tried to blink away the tears but it didn’t work and he felt them run down his cheeks, increasing the embarrassment he already felt tenfold. It didn’t matter though, because the way he saw it, he was trading his life for Kasuka’s.

Izaya couldn’t tear his eyes away from Shizuo’s broken expression, red orbs watching intently as the tears ran down the beast’s face. Shizuo looked pathetic, weak, disgusting; nothing like a monster. If anything, the idiot reminded him of those weak humans Izaya had easily broken in the past. A part of him enjoyed the sight while another didn’t, for reasons he couldn’t even begin to understand. It felt wrong, seeing his once favorite toy admit defeat, get down on its knees and beg, but what he felt the most was anger. His until then wide eyes slowly narrowed into slits and he dropped the DVD on the floor, crushed it beneath the sole of his shoe and made his way to Shizuo.

“Ne, Shizu-chan, do you know what bothers me?” he asked, but before Shizuo could even think about giving an answer, Izaya kicked the blade out of those disgustingly thin fingers and punched the moron in the face, relishing the pain he experienced as his knuckles collided with Shizuo’s cheek. “What bothers me is that you didn’t do this after you raped me; that you didn’t get down on your knees and begged for forgiveness.” Another punch followed and this time Shizuo’s bottom lip split, but the man still didn’t fight back. “It bothers me a lot,” he hissed and backed away a bit, kicking Shizuo in the face and breaking his nose. “If you had done it, I might’ve just killed you right away, and then Kasuka and your friends wouldn’t have suffered as much.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Shizuo tried to apologize even as he was chocking on the blood filling his mouth.

“Are you really?” Izaya asked and punched Shizuo again, this time hard enough to send him crumbling to the floor. The brute tried to get up, but Izaya didn’t let him. He kicked him in the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs, again and again until Shizuo was desperately gasping for breath. He then bent down, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up a bit, laughing as he viciously punched the man who had shown him that he was not a god. The skin of his knuckles split and Izaya thought he might’ve broken his hand because it really hurt, but he couldn’t stop, not when the droplets of blood landing on his face from how hard he was hitting Shizuo would never be enough to make up for what the beast had done to him.

“I’m s-sorry,” Shizuo apologized yet again and spat out the tooth he’d nearly swallowed by accident, overcome by nausea and blinding pain.

Izaya suddenly stopped laughing and he released Shizuo, the beast collapsing on the ground as though it had no strength left to so much as move a finger. He straightened his back, red eyes fixed on the beast twitching on the floor and chocking on blood.

"Your guilt will be your past, and that will be your God,” Izaya declared moments before he kicked Shizuo in the head, hard enough to send the beast plummeting into unconsciousness.

For a while, Izaya just stood there, panting until his breathing went back to normal and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of Shizuo’s blood dripping off his quivering fingers and hitting the floor.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Chapter 68: Disgraced Beast

As he continued to gaze upon the crumpled, bleeding and unconscious form, Izaya couldn’t deny that it had felt satisfying to beat the shit out of Shizuo. He wasn’t one to get into fistfights―or in this case, punch and kick someone until they passed out―but Shizuo had had it coming for a long time now and psychologically torturing the man, no, the beast, didn’t seem to have been enough to satisfy his thirst for blood. It looked like sometimes actual blood needed to be spilled before someone could even begin to put things behind and move forward. It made sense, considering how much of that crimson liquid, and tears, Izaya himself had shed at the hands of a violent brute who thought it’d be a good idea to humiliate him in one of the worst possible ways anyone could ever degrade a fellow human being.

In the past, Izaya might’ve thought of himself as being weak for giving in to the urge of wanting to physically hurt Shizuo, but that Orihara Izaya was long since dead and the person left behind, the one built from ground up out of the pieces he’d managed to slowly recover after the trauma of being broken by a beast, felt no regrets towards what he’d just done.

He’d tried to become someone new by taking Heiwajima Shizuo out of the picture, but the nightmares and the guilt he still refused to admit ever having felt made him realize that running away from the problem instead of facing it head on would not solve a single thing. The main reason why Izaya had wanted Shizuo dead was to avoid further hurting Shinra, but choosing to get rid of the beast instead of trying to control himself was like admitting defeat and that wasn’t the Orihara Izaya he wanted to become. With Shizuo alive, even as the crimson liquid continued to drip off his fingers, it felt as though he had less blood on his hands than back when he believed the beast to be dead. His heart felt lighter, knowing he was less of a monster.

“I may no longer be able to become a god to my humans, but I will be your God, Shizu-chan,” Izaya declared solemnly as his red eyes shone not with malice, but with what he considered to be divine justice.

Without so much as wiping the blood off his hands, Izaya turned around, stomped on the DVD a couple more times for good measure and then sat down in his desk chair, eyes fixed on the unconscious beast. Shizuo looked so pathetic that Izaya couldn’t believe that the passed out thing on the floor of his apartment was the same monster from that night. On second thought, it made sense that months of psychological torture combined with a good beating would do that to a person, even if said person happened to be Ikebukuro’s strongest. Izaya had chipped away at his enemy’s will to live day by day―even when he wasn’t there to remind Shizuo what kind of monster he was―and now the once dangerous beast was merely a shadow of its former self, much like Izaya himself.

“What goes around, comes around,” he uttered softly. There was a nagging voice inside his head telling Izaya that it applied to him as well, but he pushed it back down, not wanting to ruin his relatively good mood.

With still quivering fingers, Izaya reached for the phone on his desk to call Fujita Shizuka, but halfway there he changed his mind and pulled it back, worried that he might end up telling her too much. Even now, Izaya still found it hard to talk to someone about himself, probably because people had always been so quick to judge him. The last thing he needed was for one more person to imply that it’d been his fault, not only when it came to the rape, but everything else as well.

At least no one―besides Shizu-chan, the neanderthal―had outright stated that it’d been his fault. If they had, they would’ve stopped breathing; Izaya would’ve made sure of that.

In the end, he still picked up the phone.

“Good afternoon, Nakura-san.”

“Good afternoon to you too, Fujita-san. I apologize for ending our discussion so abruptly last time we talked, but I was in a hurry to get somewhere,” Izaya said, cringing a bit when the phone nearly slipped out of his hand because of the blood.

“I understand. I, for example, wouldn’t have picked up if I wasn’t on break right now. It’s what happens when you refuse to come in for regular sessions like everyone else.”

“I’m not like everyone else,” Izaya stated, smiling a bit.

“No one is like everyone else, Nakura-san. We’re all unique individuals in our own ways.”

Izaya gripped the phone tighter, pouting at her comment. “Is Fujita-san trying to bait me into declaring how special I think I am?”

“You seem like a smart individual; figure it out yourself.”

Chuckling, Izaya leaned back into his chair and began to swivel in it. “Aren’t you a bit too weird for a therapist?” he asked, smile widening.

“Am I now?”

“Fujita-san is so mean, always trying to avoid answering my questions!” Izaya complained.

“But isn’t that what you do whenever we talk?”

Izaya couldn’t see her face, but he was certain that the woman was smirking. “Oh, I see. I see. You got me, Fujita-san~. I’ll try to answer one of your questions, but be gentle, ne?”

“I always am. Let’s start with... how are you doing right now?”

Grateful for the simple question, Izaya stopped swiveling in his chair to look at the passed out beast again. “I’m actually feeling great right now, even if I did something that I wouldn’t have normally done in the past,” he confessed, still immensely enjoying the sight.

“People change, and if they’re lucky, it’s for the best.”

A frown replaced the smile. “What if they are forced to change?”

“Have you, Nakura-san, been forced to change?”

No answer.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to answer the question right now,” Fujita Shizuka spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

“Aren’t we all forced to change because of the different things happening in our lives?” Izaya said, feeling slightly embarrassed for freezing after hearing the question which hit deeply because Shizuo didn’t only change him, but took him apart until the only things left were blood, tears and the bone-chilling fear.

"You’re answering a question with another question again, but like I said, you don’t have to answer if you don’t―”

“Yes; the answer is yes,” Izaya admitted reluctantly.

At that point, Fujita Shizuka didn’t know if asking a second question would be a good idea, especially when it came to people like Nakura who obviously needed help but still refused to cooperate most of the time, but she had nothing to lose so in the end she took a chance. “Was it by circumstances or by a person?”

Izaya dug quivering fingers deeper into the desk chair’s armrest, so hard that his nails hurt. He wanted to answer so badly but at the same time he didn’t. Before he could make up his mind though, the words flew out of his mouth. “By the person bleeding on my floor right now,” Izaya said in one breath. A gasp followed the confession―why did I say it? I shouldn’t have said it—and Izaya pulled the phone away from his ear so fast that it slipped out of his fingers, fell on the floor and slid under the desk. In the next second he jumped to his feet, trembling while staring at the phone.

“Nakura-san, are you still there? Please answer me!”

Instead of answering, Izaya dropped to his knees, crawled under the desk, grabbed the phone and ended the call. Luckily, the woman couldn’t call him back since he always used a hidden number whenever he talked to her. Cursing under his breath, he got up, placed the phone on the desk and slumped back in his desk chair. He regretted opening his mouth, but then again, mentioning a possibly beaten or dead man on the floor of his apartment wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve started therapy with. As if on cue, a pained moan came from Shizuo’s direction and Izaya jumped back to his feet, startled by the sound.

The moan was followed by something sounding much like chocking as Shizuo struggled to breathe past the overflowing blood filling his mouth and nose. It hurt to try so hard when the entire left side of his face was pulsing in agonizing pain and his brain felt like it was about ready to explode, but slowly suffocating to death seemed like a far worse fate than having to endure the pain strong enough to nearly make him forget his own name as it invaded his mind and overrode everything else.

Normally, Izaya would’ve pulled out his switchblade and gotten ready for a fight, but Shizuo was looking too pathetic to even be considered a threat. It was like watching an injured dog trying to get up and failing, only succeeding in raising its head for a bit before the pain would become too much and it’d simply collapse under the weight of exhaustion. Sadly, Izaya knew too well what it was like to be beaten like a dog and then left to bleed on the ground. Calmly, he took a step in Shizuo’s direction, and then another, until he was standing beside the fallen beast.

“What am I going to do with you?” Izaya asked, not really expecting an answer. Truth be told, he hadn’t expected Shizuo to be this weak, but it made sense, considering how the idiot had been in a coma for about two months. Normal people wouldn’t even have been able to get up, and yet somehow, the brute had managed to not only do that, but to also find his way back to Tokyo and then to his archenemy’s apartment.

“Sucks not being able to get up, doesn’t it?”

The answer came in the form of a chocked whimper, pale yellow eyes opening slighting to gaze up at him. Scowling, Izaya wedged his foot underneath the too skinny body, raised it a bit and then pushed until Shizuo was lying on his side, some of the blood rushing out of the beast’s mouth and nose under the force of gravity, thus making it easier for him to breathe. He then stepped over him and crouched down, red eyes staring intently at Shizuo who was looking back at him with what appeared to be an expression of gratitude mixed with fear.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to get home by yourself,” Izaya concluded as he placed his elbows on his thighs and rested his chin on the back of his interlaced fingers.

“Ka…s-su-ka,” Shizuo croaked the name, all the while fighting to push back the nausea crashing into him in waves every time more blood, smelling and tasting too much like copper, slid down his throat. “P-Plea…se,” he begged again, fresh tears starting to gather in his eyes. A fit of coughing followed a few moments later and Shizuo couldn’t have been more surprised when Izaya grabbed him and maneuvered him to a sitting position, once again going out of his way to help him breathe.

“Before you start again,” Izaya said, sounding irritated, “I don’t have your precious Kasuka.”

“W-What?” Shizuo exclaimed, stunned, and coughed some more.

“I never did,” Izaya continued with a long sigh. “I wasn’t even in Tokyo when it happened. Really, Shizu-chan, I knew you were stupid, but how can you be this stupid?”

“But R-Ruri-san―”

“That bitch nearly ki―” Izaya started, almost making the mistake of telling Shizuo that Hijiribe Ruri was Hollywood. Luckily, he managed to stop himself in time. The beast didn’t need to know, not yet anyway, especially when it was a juicy piece of information that Izaya could always use against Kasuka if the freak ever survived the kidnapping. “I didn’t do it, okay?”

Shizuo’s brows furrowed and he wanted to believe Izaya but at the same time he was afraid because the unknown sounded just as terrifying if not more. At least the position was helping him breath, even if the nausea was still high. “B-But―”

“Would you stop with the ‘but’ already?” Izaya snapped and shook Shizuo, an action he immediately regretted when the beast whimpered and the sound was followed by the idiot throwing up blood and what was most likely the little water he’d drank on his way back to Tokyo. “Ew, really?” Izaya cried in disgust but still maintained a firm grasp on Shizuo’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Shizuo kept repeating between bouts of dry heaving while Izaya continued to hold him.

“You’re really trying to live up to the name of ‘disgusting beast,’ aren’t you?” Izaya mocked in a malicious voice and dug his nails deeper into Shizuo’s shoulder before his right hand moved lower and he tapped him on the back.

“’m s-so…rry,” Shizuo apologized yet again in a pained voice.

“It’s fine, Shizu-chan, it really is. It’s not that uncommon to throw up after a beating. I did too, you know? After you left; but I had no one to gently pat my back,” Izaya confessed, making the beast flinch at his words. He realized then, as he continued to pat Shizuo’s back, that he would probably never be able to stop trying to psychologically torture the beast since nothing brought out the sadist in him like Shizuo’s guilt did.

“H-How can I t-trust you?” Shizuo asked, straining to speak. It felt as though someone was scrambling his brain with a spoon while the raw pain in his jaw adding to it was nearly driving him insane. As if that wasn’t bad enough, two of his teeth felt loose and there was a hole where the one he’d lost was supposed to be. At that moment, he could honestly say he never would’ve imagined that Izaya could hit so hard.

“You can’t,” Izaya answered after giving it some thought, “but that’s the truth, whether you believe it or not.”

Shizuo closed his eyes when he felt the nausea return but they suddenly went wide when Izaya pulled his arm over a skinny shoulder and helped him stand. “F-Flea, I can’t w-walk by myself,” he told him, thinking that Izaya would throw him out of the apartment.

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Izaya mocked and started to drag Shizuo in the direction of the stairs.

“O-Oi, flea, w-what are you d-doing?” Shizuo stuttered, sounding a bit panicky.

“I can’t have… a filthy beast… stinking up my apartment,” Izaya declared as he struggled to move the beast upstairs. Even with the brute as skinny as he was, it still wasn’t easy to drag a grown up man up the stairs.

Shizuo tried to wrench himself out of Izaya’s hold, but he had no strength left and it led to his attempt miserably failing. “Flea, l-let… ugh… go.” The nausea came back with a vengeance and Shizuo was worried that he might end up puking all over Izaya if the bastard flea didn’t let him go. “S-Sick,” he moaned as the walls started to spin around him much faster than before, but fortunately he had nothing left to throw up.

“Almost there,” Izaya announced as he pushed open the bathroom door, panting heavily from the effort. Once inside, he lowered Shizuo on the floor and took a few moments to catch his breath.

“F-Flea, what are y-you…?”

A demonic smile spread across Izaya’s face after he wiped the sweat off his forehead and he leaned above Shizuo, red eyes staring into confused yellow ones. “Don’t go anywhere while I go get the butcher knife~” he sang as he turned on his heels and bounced out of the bathroom.

Overcome by panic, Shizuo could no longer think of anything besides the knife Izaya had mentioned. He wanted to believe that the bastard was joking, but he couldn’t put it past the insect to throw him into the tub and start chopping off his limbs one by one; while still alive!

“Back~” Izaya announced in a singsong voice a couple of minutes later, startling an even paler than before Shizuo. “Aww, did Shizu-chan really think I’d chop him into tiny pieces? How adorably stupid,” he cooed as he crouched in front of him and stuffed a few pills into his mouth, not without a fight mind you. “Would you stop it, you idiot?” Izaya growled in annoyance when Shizuo tried to spit them out, giving him no choice but to clamp a hand over the idiot’s mouth. “They’re for the pain,” he declared and smacked Shizuo’s hand away when the blond tried to grab his wrist. “I’m going to remove my hand now, and you’re going to drink the water, okay?”

Reluctantly, Shizuo nodded, if only to get the heel of Izaya’s palm away from his throbbing jaw. The glass touched his lips and he parted them, allowing the cool liquid to enter his mouth. Unfortunately, the water was too cold and he couldn’t help but cry out in agony when it washed over his bleeding gums and loose teeth, the blinding pain enough to almost knock him unconscious.

“Oops,” Izaya exclaimed but made no attempt to apologize since he didn’t exactly feel bad for causing the beast more pain.

Everything was a hellish haze again and Shizuo was starting to wonder if he could rip off his own head and survive if it meant the pain would go away. He didn’t have time to dwell on it though, because the panic quickly started to set in when Izaya grabbed his jacket and lowered the zipper. “Flea, e-what t-the hell are you d-doing?” he asked in a meek voice, but instead of answering, Izaya proceeded to completely take it off. “Flea!”

“Weren’t you supposed to be Captain Obvious?” Izaya jeered while trying his hardest to not think about the fact that he was currently taking off his enemy’s shirt.

“Just d-die,” Shizuo growled. There was a time when he used to know Izaya well, but that Izaya was long since gone, killed by him, and the new one was someone unpredictable and quite terrifying in his thirst for blood. For all he knew, Izaya could just as well kill him or bathe him.

“Shizu-chan is so mean,” Izaya complained and grabbed Shizuo’s pants next, managing to pull them off even with the beast’s pathetic attempts at stopping him. I’ll be right back,” Izaya announced and stood up. “I have to block the door somehow since a dumb brute broke the lock.”

With no strength left to fight back, Shizuo could do nothing but shiver on the cold floor of Izaya’s bathroom, watching the insect walk away.

“Ah, and Shizu-chan?” Izaya added, poking his head inside.

“?”

“Keep your briefs on~”

Despite himself, Shizuo ended up shivering harder because of a certain memory involving Izaya, a switchblade, and the threat of castration. The terror from back then was quickly coming back and it felt as though his heart was trying to burst through his chest with how hard it was beating inside his ribcage, but it was nothing compared to the fear of knowing that his brother was out there, most likely in the hands of a psychopath if Izaya hadn’t been the one to kidnap him. What if they were hurting him that very moment? What if―

“Good boy,” Izaya chirped and patted the blonde mop of hair as one would a dog, the unexpected touch bringing Shizuo back to the present.

“What the f-fuck, f-flea?” Shizuo growled, top lip curling upwards and face burning with humiliation at the way he was being treated.

Chuckling, Izaya grabbed him, pulled him up and then pushed him into the tub, making the beast groan in pain as his weak knees collided with the hard surface.

Shizuo cursed under his breath but he couldn’t fight off the flea when his muscles refused to listen to him and all they did was spasm or twitch randomly while his brain was suffering from perpetual vertigo. Cold water hit his feet and he would’ve shoved Izaya’s head into the nearest wall if he could. Sadly, he couldn’t, so he continued to lie there in the tub, feeling like shit while Izaya played with the water. “Should’a t-thrown me down the s-stairs instead.”

Izaya gasped in mock-hurt. “Moi?! Never!”

“You’re fucking c-crazy,” Shizuo said in a much softer tone than intended since the hot water was doing wonders to his sore muscles. His eyelids felt as heavy as lead but he refused to let them drop, especially in the presence of a fucked up flea crazy enough to slit his throat without a moment’s notice. Unfortunately, it was becoming harder and harder to stay awake with his energy long since sapped out of his body and the heat permeating every cell urging him to let go and sleep. He fought for a while longer, but eventually he succumbed to its pull and fell asleep around the time he felt Izaya’s fingers in his hair, massaging the scalp lightly.

Notes:

The "keep your briefs on~" line was inspired by this 3 seconds video. :3

Chapter 69: The Insight and the Catharsis

Izaya let out a sound of frustration as he continued to struggle with what appeared to be the impossible task of taking his ring off. His hand was swollen, fingers looking like sausages, and because of that he was worried that he might have no choice but to get the ring cut off. He could no longer form a fist and now that the adrenalin appeared to have worn off, he was thinking more and more that a bone in his hand must’ve snapped while punching Shizuo since it hurt too much and he couldn’t move his pinky without pain shooting up his arm.

“Stupid beast, why’s your face so hard?” Izaya whined, finally giving up on taking off the ring. If he hadn’t been able to do it in the shower, after pouring a generous amount of liquid soap on it, then he doubted he could before the swelling went down a bit. In hindsight, he realized that he probably shouldn’t have punched Shizuo with such viciousness, if only to spare himself the trouble of having to deal with a swollen and most likely broken hand.

Sighing, he lied down on the couch and closed his eyes, exhaustion finally getting to him. Touching Shizuo and even washing the idiot―not below the waist, never―had been one of the hardest things he ever had to do, but pushing himself to carry the beast upstairs for a bath was his way of facing the dread he felt whenever Ikebukuro’s monster was anywhere near him. Normally, he wouldn’t have been able to do much about it, but with Shizuo as weak as a newborn, it had been quite easy to forget how dangerous the blond could be.

There were in fact many reasons why he’d done it, one of them being to show Shizuo that he was better than him. By seeing the contrast between their actions, Shizuo would think of himself as even more of a beast than he already thought he was. Another reason was that while he could’ve called someone to pick up the beast, he didn’t want others to know that he had lost control like that and turned violent. He didn’t exactly regret hurting Shizuo, but it didn’t mean that he was proud of it either. Orihara Izaya was known for using his brain, not his physical strength to bring down an enemy.

Either way, he no longer wanted Shizuo to die when the possibility of molding the utterly crushed beast into something new, something he could use, sounded like so much fun. Even after everything that had happened between them, Heiwajima Shizuo was still his favorite toy.

***

Kasuka was feeling both physically and mentally exhausted. Instead of sleeping, he spent the entire night trying to come up with a plan to escape. He’d fallen asleep sometimes after what he assumed was midnight but woke up soon after when he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps followed by the door handle being pressed. Slon never entered the small room―as though he’d changed his mind―but Kasuka could no longer sleep after that when all he could think about was Izaya and the possibility, more like the certainty, that he’d end up like the Informant.

Kasuka could only hope that he wouldn’t be as affected given how good he was at controlling his emotions. It would be another form of violence, but more disgusting; infinitely more disgusting. It’d be humiliating and it’d probably hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced before, Izaya seemed to be in a lot of pain that night, but he’d be fine. He would; of course he would. Why wouldn’t he?

No, I won’t, he eventually admitted as his eyes drifted over to the cuff attached to his ankle. He was fucked, figuratively, and he knew that soon he would be literally too. It was only a matter of time before Slon opened that door and attacked him. The man was far too big and far too strong and Kasuka couldn’t properly fight when his knee still hurt so much that he couldn’t stand on that leg for more than a couple of seconds at a time.

What he needed was a weapon, but there was nothing inside the room that could be used as one. His only hope of acquiring anything resembling a weapon was for Slon to bring him food and something to eat it with, be it a fork, a spoon or chopsticks. Either of them could be used to injure someone, though Kasuka was personally hoping for either chopsticks or a fork. He wasn’t very fond of violence, but he had no problem with using it if the need arose. If taking out Slon’s other eye was what needed to be done, then he would do it no matter how much he disliked the idea of thrusting something into another person’s eye.

The sound of approaching footsteps made him sit up and ball his hands into fists, pulse picking up and heart pounding in his ears. He watched the door, transfixed, as Slon unlocked it, pushed it open and then walked inside, dread spiking up until he noticed the bowl of instant noodles the man was carrying.

“Thought you might be hungry,” Slon said as he dragged the small table next to the bed and placed the bowl on top of it. Seeing how his prisoner wasn’t saying anything and instead blankly staring at the food, Slon couldn’t help but mock him. “What? You don’t like the plastic fork?”

“The soup is cold,” Kasuka remarked in his usual flat tone even though he was really starting to worry that he might not make it out of there in one piece before something really bad happened.

Slon sneered and leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. “You expected it to be hot so that you could throw it in my face?”

“Yes,” Kasuka answered without so much as batting an eye. He then picked up the fork and started eating, knowing that he needed the strength.

“You and that Orihara bastard are something,” Slon remarked as he moved away from the wall, leaned forward and placed his hands on the tabletop, single eye narrowing into a slit when Kasuka ignored the proximity and continued to eat without a care in the world.

After a while, seeing how Slon wasn’t backing away, Kasuka let go of the fork―it looked too fragile to bee used as a weapon―and raised his head to meet Slon’s furious gaze. “Whatever happened between you and Izaya has nothing to do with me,” he stated calmly.

The table started to creak with how hard Slon was pressing down on it, but Kasuka didn’t break eye contact and instead continued to maintain it, waiting for the Russian to look away first. He had a feeling that Slon was toying with him and that he’d get jumped at the first sign of fear he showed.

“It has everything to do with you,” Slon growled the words as his hand shot forward and he grabbed a fistful of black hair, the action barely startling the actor who continued to maintain the usual emotionless facade while staring at him. Without letting go, Slon raised his other hand and touched the bruised face, marveling at how pretty it was even after the beating it’d received. “That Orihara snake,” he hissed the words as his hand traveled downwards, fingertips barely touching the soft skin of Kasuka’s neck before he pulled them back and untangled his other hand from black silky locks. He fucking hated Izaya for playing him into getting obsessed with Hanejima Yuuhei. “Finish your food,” Slon ordered as he leaned against the wall again.

Kasuka didn’t need to be told twice. He picked up the fork and went back to eating, surprised himself that he’d managed to keep his ground. The soggy noodles didn’t taste very good, but he needed the energy and he couldn’t afford to be picky. “I’m done,” he announced after drinking the soup too, placing the plastic fork inside the bowl and picking it up to hand it to his captor. He didn’t think Slon would attack right after giving him food, and his assumption turned out to be right when the man grabbed the bowl and left the room, the sound of receding footsteps enough to slow down Kasuka’s racing heart. He had no idea how much time he had until the man came back, but he knew that he had to come up with a new plan as soon as possible, before Ruri and his family died of worry. For the first time since Shizuo had fallen into a coma, Kasuka was glad that his brother wasn’t awake to know what was happening.

***

It was early in the morning when Izaya woke up to the sounds of someone trying to push open the door. He’d blocked it with a chair earlier that day after Shizuo broke the lock and it seemed like he’d fallen asleep before he got the chance to call someone to fix it. He was about ready to go retrieve the switchblade from his desk drawer when he heard a familiar voice, one he hadn’t heard in about two months. Smiling, he stood up from the couch and moved to open the door, but the thing burst open before he could reach it and he was met with the sight of two more people besides the one he expected to see.

“You’d think that someone who owns twenty phones could’ve at least picked one up to let me know that he wasn’t dying in some ditch somewhere,” Shinra hissed as he stomped in Izaya’s direction and fisted a hand into his idiot friend’s T-shirt.

Izaya laughed nervously. “I was busy, but look at you, you can walk!” Izaya said enthusiastically as he backed away a bit to enjoy the sight of his friend standing instead of lying broken in a hospital bed, at the same time ignoring the other two uninvited guests. Truth be told, he’d missed Shinra and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with either Celty or Ruri when both monsters had tried to kill him before. Sadly, they didn’t seem as inclined to ignore him, seeing as how both of them were flanking him from both sides, as though they were expecting him to make a run for it.

“Where is Shizuo-san?” Ruri asked in her usual monotone voice. She’d waited for Kasuka’s brother to call and tell her about what he had discussed with Izaya, but when the sun set and she still couldn’t reach him, she concluded that something must’ve gone wrong. It was then when Ruri decided to call Celty and tell her everything since the two of them got along well and Celty knew where Izaya lived. The Dullahan was also acquainted with both Shizuo and Izaya much better than Ruri herself was and it seemed like a wise choice to take her along.

“Shizu-chan? He’s sleeping~” Izaya answered in a singsong voice while surreptitiously slipping his right hand into the pocket of his pants. “He showed up earlier today, thinking I had something to do with Kasuka’s disappearance, but he looked pretty weak and banged up so I took pity on him and told him he could crash at my place until he feels better.”

Shinra let out a gasp of surprise while the smoke spilling from inside Celty’s helmet suddenly froze.

“And before you ask, no, I did not have anything to do with Kasuka’s disappearance,” he declared, pouting a little.

Shinra’s smile fell and his expression turned serious. “I heard about it on the news.”

“And?” Izaya asked, frowning.

Shinra gave him a confused look. “And what?”

“Do you think I did it?” Izaya continued with a sigh.

“No.”

Izaya then turned to Celty who looked like she was dying to see Shizuo. “How about you, Courier-san?”

[Shinra assured me that you didn’t.]

The corners of Izaya’s lips curled upwards into a smirk. “So?”

[I trust Shinra,] was Celty’s simple answer.

Feeling a bit relieved, Izaya turned to Ruri with a serious expression on his face. “Like I said, I had nothing to do with it.” He then moved closer to her so that the other two couldn’t hear his next words. “The DVD is gone,” Izaya whispered into her ear, hoping to find out if Kasuka had made copies of it. “I assure you, it’s for the best, for everyone involved.”

“I understand,” Ruri replied without so much as looking at him. There was no point in crying over spilled milk, and besides, Izaya couldn’t have destroyed it if Shizuo hadn’t allowed it, which meant that Kasuka’s brother had reasons to believe that Orihara Izaya wasn’t involved in the kidnapping. “I will find Yuuhei myself.”

[I will help,] Celty offered, moving closer and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you.” The more Ruri thought about it, the less sense it made for Orihara Izaya to kidnap Kasuka if that meant the DVD would be released. She’d thought about it before, but Izaya was a strange person that she couldn’t read very well. He seemed like someone who’d put his safety above everything and everyone else, but at the same time he reminded Ruri of herself, the old Hijiribe Ruri willing to risk everything for the sake of dealing punishment to those who had hurt her. There was still the possibility that Izaya had done it but managed to get away with it by convincing the others that he wouldn’t do it if it meant hurting himself, but it no longer mattered since the DVD was gone and bluffing seemed pointless when Izaya continued to maintain his innocence.

“I leave Shizuo-san in your hands,” Ruri uttered softly before she turned on her heels and walked out of the apartment, knowing that her friend would make sure Kasuka’s brother would be safe.

Celty waited until Ruri was out of sight before approaching Izaya who in the meantime had sat down in his desk chair. [Ruri-san told me everything.]

Izaya placed his elbow on the armrest and rested his chin on the back of his hand. “I see. Anything else?” he asked, chuckling a bit.

[I want to see Shizuo, now.]

Izaya sighed and stood up. “He’s upstairs, but I suggest you wait here for a bit until Shinra takes a look at him.”

“What?! I don’t want to see him,” Shinra declared and tried to tear himself out of Izaya’s hold when his friend grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him towards the stairs. He had a feeling that Shizuo would break one or more of his limbs for giving Izaya the means to take away his ability to move, and Shinra didn’t want his limbs to get broken again so soon after finally healing; or ever for that matter. “Please stop,” Shinra begged when they reached the top of the stairs and Izaya roughly pulled him in the direction of the bedroom. “I’m too young to die,” he cried in a low enough voice so that Celty wouldn’t hear him.

“You’ll be fine,” Izaya said right before he opened the door and dragged his friend inside, Shinra’s struggles only ceasing when grey eyes fell upon the sleeping blond.

Shizuo was lying in bed, with several towels underneath him and wearing nothing but his briefs. “He’s not dead, is he?” Shinra asked, frowning, as he carefully made his way to the bed after Izaya closed the door and finally released him.

“He’s still very much alive,” Izaya declared, leaning against the door.

“Did he really get into a fight on his way here or did you…?” Shinra asked after seeing the many bruises littering Shizuo’s body, especially the face.

Ignoring the question, Izaya moved away from the door and started rummaging through the closet for anything that would fit a dumb protozoan. “Help me put some clothes on him,” he requested of Shinra who was just standing there, staring at the blond while wearing an expression of shock mixed with disgust.

When the question registered in his mind, Shinra turned to Izaya. “Why do I have to?” he complained and tried to make a run for the door, but Izaya caught him and dragged him back, smacking the idiot over the head for trying to bail on him like that.

“Stop being a baby and help me put these on him,” Izaya growled in annoyance as he pointed to the sweatpants and the T-shirt he’d thrown on the bed earlier.

“But I don’t want to!” Shinra whined and continued to struggle to get away, only to stop when Izaya let out a pained cry after Shinra grabbed him by the hand to push him away. It was then when he finally noticed the bruised and swollen hand, as well as the split skin covering the knuckles. “Oh, so it was you!” Shinra exclaimed in surprise. He never would’ve expected Izaya to use his fists instead of a switchblade, or that Shizuo would allow anyone to hit him like that when the man was known for easily losing his temper. It was the only reasonable explanation for Izaya’s lack of injuries besides the damaged hand.

“Look, I don’t want to do it myself,” Izaya confessed. Taking Shizuo’s clothes had been disturbing enough and he wanted the beast dressed already since it made him uncomfortable to know that the idiot was sleeping in his bed wearing nothing but a pair of briefs.

“Why would you even do this?” It made no sense to Shinra when he knew how much Izaya hated Shizuo. “Besides, wasn’t he supposed to be dead?”

Izaya picked up the sweatpants and threw them in Shinra’s direction, who, surprisingly enough, caught them. “I don’t know.”

“Did you tell him that I…?” His voice died on his lips when Izaya nodded, confirming what Shinra already suspected. “You asshole!” he hissed and threw the pants back at Izaya who caught them and placed them on the bed. “Now he’s going to kill me when he wakes up,” Shinra cried out in fear, hands quivering slightly.

Sighing, Izaya grabbed Shizuo’s left arm and slipped it through the T-shirt’s sleeve. “He won’t. He’s got more important things to worry about, like finding his brother.”

Annoyed that Izaya was being an idiot, Shinra grabbed him by the arm and shook him a bit. “Why are you doing this?” he growled while pointing to the passed out beast with his other hand. “You forgot what this monster did to you?”

“I didn’t,” Izaya spoke calmly, red eyes meeting dark grey ones.

“Then why?” Shinra asked again, grip tightening around Izaya’s arm. “If this was the bastard who tortured me, I would’ve chopped him to pieces.”

Izaya grimaced because of the tight grip on his arm but made no attempt to free himself. Instead, his eyes narrowed into slits and he returned Shinra’s murderous glare. “You think that I don’t want to torture him? Oh, there are so many ways I could make him scream! I even thought about cutting off his dick or hiring a few men to fuck him to near death, but that’s not going to make me feel better. You know why?”

Shinra shook his head and his grip loosened but he still didn’t let go. Hearing Izaya talk about violence like that sounded foreign since Izaya preferred mind games as opposed to physical torture, but Shinra couldn’t blame the man after he himself had been a victim of violence.

“Because I don’t want to become a monster like him,” Izaya confessed, this time pushing Shinra away so that he could finish putting the T-shirt on Shizuo.

“Fine, I understand that part, but why not throw him out?” Shinra asked, sounding annoyed as he picked up the sweatpants, finally making up his mind to help out.

“It’s because I want to engrave the image of this weak Shizuo into my mind,” Izaya revealed before continuing in a low voice. “Because I’m tired of being angry… and afraid.”

The last two words were spoken in a low voice, but Shinra was still able to make them out. A wave of empathy washed over him but he said nothing; he too knew what fear felt like.

“For the longest time I saw Shizuo as this unbeatable monster, but look at him now!” Izaya started, frown deepening. “He’s just like a human, so weak that he couldn’t even get up after I was done venting my anger.”

“He’d been in a coma before you beat him up, Izaya,” Shinra reminded him with a long sigh. “Normal people wouldn’t even be able to move afterwards, and some might even have brain damage.”

Izaya moved a few strands of bleached hair out of Shizuo’s face to reveal the scar on the right side of the temple. “I didn’t do this. I only stabbed him, but this might be why he fell into a coma.”

Intrigued by the revelation, Shinra leaned forward to take a closer look. “Either someone hit him or he fell and hit his head on something,” he mused before he went back to what he was doing.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Was he coherent?”

“Surprisingly so, but he seemed a bit out of it,” Izaya recalled, looking pensive.

Shinra slipped an arm underneath Shizuo’s waist and pulled the sweatpants up surprisingly skinny legs and hips while Izaya pulled out the towels from beneath Shizuo. “All done,” he muttered unhappily and covered Shizuo with the blanket lying on the bed next to the unconscious form. Sighing, he walked up to Izaya and carefully captured the swollen hand so that he could take a look at it.

“Aren’t you going to check Shizu-chan, to see what’s wrong with him?”

“I’m not his doctor,” Shinra stated in a tired voice.

“But―”

“There’s really nothing I can do for him. He’ll be fine. He always is, isn’t he?” No matter how injured Shizuo was at that moment, it couldn’t be worse than when the blond had been shot and nearly bled to death. “Besides, I’m more worried about you,” Shinra said, this time in a soft voice. “I was worried, thinking that something bad must’ve happened to you.”

Feeling a bit guilty, Izaya lowered his head. “I needed some time away from everything after I found out that Shizu-chan hadn’t died.”

Izaya reminded him so much of a kicked puppy that Shinra felt bad for even mentioning it. He was about to tell Izaya that he didn’t have to talk about it if he didn’t want to when he heard a knock on the door. “You can come in now,” he told his beloved who had apparently lost her patience and decided that she could wait no longer.

As Celty walked in and she saw Shizuo, for the first time in a long time, she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. All this time she had blamed herself for pushing both Shizuo and Izaya away when she should’ve tried harder to help them, but Shizuo was still alive and that meant a second chance for her to make things right. She would not run away again.

“We’ll be downstairs,” she heard Shinra’s voice followed by the sound of the door closing, but Celty couldn’t look away from Shizuo’s bruised face.

I’ll do my best to help you both, Celty thought as she ran a hand through Shizuo’s hair. I promise.

Chapter 70: Burden of the Past

Shizuo groaned as he slowly turned to his side, head still pounding. His cheek had just touched the pillow when blinding pain flared up his jaw, forcing him to pull away while he moaned in agony as his eyelids fluttered open and he blinked repeatedly, trying to make out any shape in the engulfing darkness. After a while, his eyes got accustomed to it and he was finally able to tell that he was inside a room, one he did not recognize.

Slowly, he stood up on unsteady legs and made his way to the door, pressing the handle with a trembling hand and then careening into the hallway. This he recognized, and yet he couldn’t understand what he was doing at Izaya’s place. Confused, he headed in the direction of the stairs, using the wall as support while he kept trying to blink away the burn and sting in his eyes caused by the sudden burst of light.

He’d just reached the stairs and grabbed the rail when he caught sight of Izaya sitting at his desk, apparently sleeping. “Oi, flea,” Shizuo tried to shout, but his voice sounded too weak and said flea did nothing besides uncaringly continuing to sleep. Cursing under his breath, Shizuo grabbed the rail and carefully made his way downstairs, more and more memories coming back to him and nearly making his heart stop when he recalled that his brother had been kidnapped and that the reason he’d gone to Izaya was to beg him to give Kasuka back.

Oh, he’d begged alright, and then got beat up by a furious Izaya. Too many things had happened in a short amount of time and Shizuo almost felt like throwing up, but he fought the sensation as much as he could so that he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of Izaya again. He also remembered the flea’s words, telling him that he should’ve gotten on his knees to beg for forgiveness for his sins, but the hatred for the man had never really disappeared and his own pride had stopped him from doing so. That wasn’t the case when it came to Kasuka though. For his brother, Shizuo would do anything.

“Izaya,” Shizuo tried again, face burning with humiliation as he recalled the events that had taken place before he’d fallen asleep; or passed out. The fact that Izaya hadn’t thrown him out was a shock in itself, but seeing the flea sleeping, face looking rather peaceful when compared to the other two times Shizuo had seen him like that, was quite surprising. Izaya’s right hand was bandaged and Shizuo found himself flinching at the memory of that fist repeatedly crashing into his face.

They needed to have a talk, and since falling asleep at the desk didn’t look very comfortable―it certainly explained the small frown on that devilish visage―he raised a hand and carefully placed it on Izaya’s left shoulder. “Flea, we need to talk,” he spoke in a louder voice, which was still low by normal standards, but Izaya didn’t stir until Shizuo shook him a bit.

Red eyes opened wide, Izaya’s expression changing from one of confusion, to one of fear and then finally settling on anger. The man looked terrifying and before Shizuo even had a chance to open his mouth, Izaya was upon him, an elbow colliding with his chest and a knee crashing into his most sensitive area, forcing a wail out of his throat and sending him plummeting to the floor.

Shizuo immediately curled in on himself, trembling hands covering his family jewels in order to protect them from further damage as he chocked on the intense pain, broken whimpers slipping past his lips once in a while no matter how hard he fought to keep them from climbing up his throat. He thought he heard Izaya say something, but his ears were ringing and all he could do was try to focus on breathing while the pain slowly lowered in intensity.

“I’m s-sorry” he uttered weakly, not even sure what he was apologizing for. All he knew was that he’d made Izaya angry and that he had to appease him before the man lost it and beat him to a bloody pulp again. Heiwajima Shizuo wasn’t one to be scared of a beating, but he had a feeling that he might really die if it happened again given how weak he was. Even dying was fine, especially when he knew that he deserved it, but he couldn’t afford to give his last breath before finding Kasuka and bringing him home safely.

Izaya, who until then had been looming over Shizuo, crouched down and fisted a hand into Shizuo’s hair. “I’m going to say this once, so be sure to sear it into your protozoic brain. Don’t ever touch me again. Do you understand?”

“Y-Yes,” Shizuo answered in a high-pitched pained voice, heart speeding up when Izaya’s expression changed from one of mixed anger and annoyance to a creepily cheerful one. Whenever Izaya put on a smile, Shizuo knew that something bad was bound to happen.

“Great~” Izaya said in a singsong voice as he released his grip on the blonde locks and grabbed Shizuo by the arm. “Now let’s get you up.”

Shizuo didn’t fight it and instead allowed Izaya to do whatever he wanted. Standing was hard after such a vicious blow to his crotch area and walking was even harder, but he managed to reach the couch with Izaya’s help, limping all the way there and then nearly collapsing on it the moment he was released. Groaning, he shifted to a more comfortable position and rested his head atop the back of the couch, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling for a while until he was certain that he could talk and sound more like his usual self. “Why did you help me?”

“Because you didn’t help me,” Izaya answered without hesitation. There were a lot of things he was planning to keep from Shizuo, but this wasn’t one of them.

Frowning, Shizuo raised his head and turned to Izaya. “Is that the only reason?”

“Not exactly,” Izaya admitted, serious expression now gone and replaced by a cheerful one. “There was this mutt bleeding on my floor and I couldn’t help but take pity on it since it looked so pathetic.”

Shizuo growled low in his throat but said nothing, knowing that Izaya wasn’t far from the truth since it felt as though he barely had enough energy to stay awake, let alone get up and go look for Kasuka. “What do you know about what happened to my brother?”

“I was on vacation, enjoying my time away from your comatose body, your freak of a brother and his equally freakish girlfriend when I saw―”

“Wait, what?” Shizuo interrupted Izaya, straightening his back and staring at the man with a look of utter shock on his face.

Izaya tilted his head to the side, looking confused. “Huh?”

“I was in a coma?!”

At first, Izaya could do nothing but blink, until he got past how idiotic Shizuo could be and he started laughing. “Mhm, for about two months.” Izaya answered once he was able to breathe again. He was tempted to call Shizuo a ‘Sleeping Beast’, but he refrained from doing so since he preferred the nickname ‘mutt’. “You should’ve seen Kasu-chan, trying so hard to make everyone believe that you had died.”

Shizuo’s back had just touched the couch again when he heard Izaya’s words and he jumped back up, once again shocked out of his mind. “Why would he… do that?” Izaya didn’t answer, but the bloodthirsty gaze and the dangerous smirk were the only answer Shizuo ever needed. “About my brother…” Shizuo continued in an attempt to change the subject before Izaya changed his mind and decided to off him, “you really don’t know anything?”

At this point, Izaya couldn’t afford to screw up if he wanted things to go his way. No matter how often he insulted Shizuo, he knew the brute wasn’t as dumb as he made him out to be. “I don’t know anything. Like I said, I was enjoying my vacation when I heard about it on the news and I came back to Tokyo, suspecting that your brother’s idiotic girlfriend might release the video thinking I had something to do with the kidnapping.”

“That thing needed to disappear.” The mere memory of that video made his heart ache and Shizuo didn’t even want to imagine what it would’ve been like if other people saw it too, especially his family―his mother in particular. He’d caused them a lot of grief and he didn’t want his parents to know what their youngest son had been put through because of a worthless older brother. He’d assumed Kasuka had destroyed it back when the thing disappeared from his apartment, but he should’ve known that his brother would keep it and use it against Izaya if he ever felt there was a need. “Two months, huh…?”

Izaya nodded. “Shizu-chan, do you remember who helped you get to the hospital?”

Shizuo closed his eyes, trying to recall what had happened before he blacked out. “I remember seeing someone at the top of the stairs before I fell, but he didn’t have a face.”

“What are you talking about, Shizu-chan? Of course he had a face; everyone has one,” Izaya spoke in an irritated tone. “Think harder.”

Light brown eyes opened and locked with Izaya’s red-tinted ones. “Look, I know that I was bleeding out and stuff, but the guy had no face. I’m sure,” Shizuo said, voice cracking towards the end. His mouth was dry but he was reluctant to drink water when he still clearly remembered the brain-melting pain caused by the liquid touching his loose teeth back when Izaya had given him a couple of pills.

“That’s helpful,” Izaya commented sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry I can’t clearly remember everything I saw while bleeding out,” Shizuo replied in an equally sarcastic tone. “Look, just give me back my clothes so that I can leave.”

“I don’t have them anymore~”

“What the hell? What did you do with them?” Shizuo snapped, glaring murder at the bastard flea smirking at him.

“While I may have aided a beaten mutt, I’m not generous enough to wash said mutt’s clothes on top of the mutt itself,” Izaya answered, tone dripping with disgust.

Shizuo’s expression softened, realizing that it couldn’t have been easy for Izaya to do the things he did. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Izaya assured him, doing his best to sound sincere as he made his first move. “I’ll ask our psychotic Dullahan ‘friend’ to bring you some clothes, though I don’t understand why you insist on leaving when you can barely walk by yourself.”

Shizuo shot him a disbelieving look. “I have to find my brother.”

“Whoever took him didn’t do it for the money, seeing as how no ransom has yet been demanded. Anyway, I doubt you’ll ever find your brother again, and if you do, he’ll probably be―”

“Shut up! I’ll find him, and if I can’t, then the police… why the hell are you laughing, bastard?”

“You must be an idiot if you think the police will find him. My informant inside the police department knows a guy working on the case and he said they have no clue regarding the identity of the person who took your brother. They can’t even find the van used in the kidnapping. As for you,” Izaya continued mockingly, “you’re not smart enough to do it. Finding someone requires certain skills and connections, not brute strength. You’re simply not smart enough to track down what’s most likely a psychopath with a Hanejima Yuuhei obsession.”

Shizuo’s shoulders drooped as Izaya’s words registered in his head, but it made him realize something and his eyes went wide as he stared at the Informant with hope. “You can help me find him.”

Bingo, Izaya thought as he fought to contain the deep glee he was feeling on the inside. “While I love the idea of finding your brother’s corpse and then watching you as your soul crumbles to dust, I still think I’ll refuse. I’m busy, and I can’t afford to waste any more time on you and your brother.”

“Busy? You’re not doing anything, flea!” Shizuo sneered.

“Eh? Of course I am,” Izaya replied in a whiny voice, hoping that he’d sounded offended enough. “Taking revenge is a time-consuming business, and I already spent too much time on you when I should’ve been working. Shiki-san is more than a bit irritated by my absence and he expects me to make it up to him, not to mention that I have a long list of clients waiting for me to provide them with the information they’ve requested months ago.”

“I’ll pay!” Shizuo tried, but Izaya’s skeptical look told him that he probably wouldn’t have enough money to pay him anyway. “I’ll do anything!” he blurted out without thinking, but at least Izaya appeared to be considering it if the pensive look was any indication.

As he gazed upon the desperate beast, never before had Izaya have such a hard time containing the sadistic laughter threatening to erupt past his lips. “Hmm, I don’t know...”

“You want me to beg, is that it?” Shizuo asked in a resigned voice, at that point willing to do almost anything if it meant getting his brother back. No matter how much Shizuo hated what Izaya did for a job, he couldn’t deny that the flea was very good at getting information and finding people; like that time when he managed to find out that Erika was the person responsible for sending the note and the photo.

Cursing under his breath, he stood up and limped―his dick still hurt like a motherfucker―to the small area between the TV and the coffee table. His battered face burned with shame and he lowered his eyes and then his head, unable to further look Izaya in the eyes when the man was staring so intently at him. He knelt rather abruptly, mostly because standing was just too exhausting and painful, and took a few deep breaths before opening his mouth. “Please help me find my brother.”

For this one, Izaya put on a completely blank mask. He would not show any emotions; or so he hoped. “You do remember that you raped me, don’t you?” He waited until Shizuo nodded before continuing. “And now you’re asking me for help. In what universe does that make any sense?”

“I’m sorry about what I did to you,” Shizuo apologized sincerely.

Suddenly, Izaya found it very hard to breathe. His hands were trembling so he quickly folded his arms over his chest and hid his hands from view so that Shizuo couldn’t see them if he looked at him. The damn apology sounding too sincere, something he was grateful for but at the same time he despised.

“I know that no matter what I say or do, I can never give back what I took from you,” Shizuo continued, and this time he raised his head to look Izaya in the eyes.

Startled, Izaya resembled a deer caught in the headlights for a few seconds, eyes wide and mouth agape. That’s right, Shizu-chan, you can never give me back my shattered pride, not after you watched me break by your own hands. He couldn’t say it out loud though, said shattered pride preventing him from further humiliating himself by telling Shizuo just how much he was still suffering because of that night. “You know what they say; you’re not being sincere enough if your forehead isn’t touching the ground,” Izaya said in an attempt to sound like his usual sadistic bastard self while he fought to stop the tremors threatening to overcome him.

The feeling of humiliation Shizuo felt until then suddenly disappeared after seeing the look in Izaya’s eyes and he placed his palms flat on the floor and lowered his forehead without hesitation, feeling it in his heart that it was the right thing to do. “I really am sorry.”

Izaya stood up and walked over to Shizuo who was still groveling on the floor, body trembling in exhaustion. He bent down, grabbed Shizuo by the arm and helped him up. “I’ll find your brother,” he promised and moved to stand in front of the man who had ruined him. “But until I do,” he then added as he raised a hand, grabbed a fistful of too long hair and forced Shizuo’s head lower so that he could whisper in his ear, “I own you.”

Shizuo’s breath hitched and his eyes went wide but he remained silent even as the nauseating suspicion that he might’ve just fallen into one of Izaya’s traps swept over him. If I can get my brother back, it doesn’t matter; he tried to reassure himself as he swallowed the lump in his throat. Nothing else matters.

***

Kasuka had only managed to fall asleep the night before after finally figuring out a way to escape. Gravely injuring Slon was not an option as long as he had no weapon, which meant that the only thing left for him to do was to kill his captor. It wouldn’t be easy and there was a high chance that he would fail because of how much stronger the Russian man was, but Kasuka had no choice in the matter. It beat sitting around and waiting for the inevitable. Beneath the blanket covering his lap, his right hand tightened around the chain and yet his face remained expressionless as the sounds of approaching footsteps, followed by those of the door being unlocked and the handle being pressed, rang louder and louder in his ears.

“We need to talk,” Slon said as he closed the door and turned to his prisoner. The actor was just staring at him, not saying a word, so Slon made his way to the bed and reclined against the wall, now facing the man. “I’ll ask you a few questions and you’re going to answer them if you know what’s good for you.”

Talking wasn’t exactly what Kasuka had been expecting, but he nodded nonetheless to buy more time until he found an opportunity to attack.

Slon raised a finger. “First question: why did Orihara Izaya try to get you raped?” Seeing as he got no answer, he raised another finger and continued. “Second question: what’s your relationship with that man? Third question: what is really going on between that Orihara scum and your brother?”

“I have a question too,” Kasuka interrupted him.

“I’m listening,” Slon said as he lowered his arm.

“Why didn’t you ask Izaya these questions instead of going through the trouble of kidnapping me?”

“Because every word that comes out of that man’s mouth is a lie,” Slon answered, gritting his teeth and unconsciously balling both hands into fists. “Now answer the questions.”

“Izaya tried to hurt me in order to hurt my brother. The two of them have been enemies since high school.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the truth nonetheless.

Slon snorted and shook his head in disapproval. “And here I thought, thinking we were just starting to get along.”

“It’s the truth,” Kasuka stated calmly, but his grip around the chain tightened further.

“I highly doubt that Izaya woke up one day and thought it’d be fun to spend a whole month trying to get me interested in you, only to change his mind at the last moment and risk his life in the process. There had to be a catalyst,” Slon concluded.

There was one alright, but Kasuka had no intention of telling anyone what Shizuo had done.

“But here’s the funny thing. My partner and I have been following Izaya whenever we could and one night I happened to see him going up to your brother’s apartment and spending the night there. Are they secret lovers? Did your brother cheat on him and that Izaya bastard tried to take revenge on him by hurting you? Are they actually only enemies and your brother did something bad enough to force Izaya to take such a drastic measure? Which one is it?” Slon asked as he pushed himself away from the wall and started pacing the small room.

Finally getting the opportunity he’d been waiting for when his captor turned his back on him, Kasuka pushed the blanket away, jumped to his feet, threw the chain around Slon’s neck, taking him by surprise, and started pulling in the direction of the door after somehow managing to get past the angry man, using all the strength he could muster to hopefully choke him to death. Seeing the Russian struggling to slip a hand between his own neck and the chain forced Kasuka to pull harder, blood flowing down his hands and dripping down on the floor as the metal tore into his skin.

He could barely hear the chocking sounds Slon was making with how fast his heart beat, face twisting with the effort he was putting into killing the man. He was just thinking about how close he was to succeeding and that he would soon be able to go home to Ruri, that there was no way for Slon to get out of this one alive, but the man proved him wrong when he grabbed the chain with both hands and roughly pulled on it, the sudden movement causing Kasuka to trip and fall because of his bad knee. Slon was upon him before he could recover, cursing words accompanying the vicious blows raining down upon his body.

“Сукин сын бля, уебанок хуев; ебаный ублюдок!”

Kasuka raised his arms in an attempt to protect his face, but a savage kick to the head stunned him before he could do it and the last thing he saw and felt before he slipped into unconsciousness was the horror of Slon pulling away at his yukata.

Chapter 71: The Serpent's Lair

After spending most of the day looking for clues on Kasuka’s whereabouts and not finding any, the only thing on Celty’s mind as she paced around the living room was that leaving Shizuo alone with Izaya had been a huge mistake. She’d done it because Shinra had assured her that Izaya wouldn’t try to kill Shizuo again, and yet she couldn’t get rid of this unsettling feeling that something bad was bound to happen since those two were not known to act or talk like civilized people when around one another. She heard a sigh coming from somewhere on her right and that’s when she remembered that Shinra was in the room with her, watching but not really watching TV.

“Shizuo would’ve been dead by now if Izaya still wanted him dead; you know that,” Shinra tried to convince her, but it didn’t look like it was working since Celty was still agitated. Sighing again, he patted the spot next to him. “Come here.”

Celty reluctantly took the invitation and sat down next to Shinra.

“Trenching the living room won’t fix anything,” he uttered softly as he raised his hands and placed them on Celty’s shoulders. “You need to relax,” he then added as he began to massage his beloved’s tense shoulders. The two of them had grown closer over the past few months but they were still not as close as Shinra wanted them to be. He wished that Celty’s shyness would’ve been the only reason, but the problem was that she was still mad at him because of the things he’d hid from her regarding her head.

[You’re right. If Izaya hasn’t killed him yet, it means he’s got something planned,] Celty typed and raised the PDA somewhere above her left shoulder so that Shinra could read it.

“Of course he’s got something planned. We’re talking about Izaya here.” With Celty tensing beneath his fingers again, Shinra’s right hand traveled lower, caressing his darling’s back a few times before snaking it beneath her arm and doing the same to her breasts. There was a fifty-fifty chance that Celty was going to either elbow him in the stomach or allow him to continue, so when his darling reclined against his chest, silently giving him permission to continue, he breathed in relief. His heart sped up as the heat started to rise in his body, contrasting greatly with the coldness of the shadows wrapping around Celty. She was always cold, but it was one of the things he loved about her.

If Celty had a head, she would’ve blushed furiously, especially with how much she was enjoying Shinra’s hands on her body. It felt wrong because of what she was, but at the same time it felt so right because of how much she loved him. Celty loved Shinra more than anything, and no matter how angry she still was at him, it didn’t lessen the love she felt for him. Celty slowly retracted the shadows covering her body, revealing more and more of herself to Shinra’s hungry eyes. She stopped when the shadows reached her hips, hoping that showing the upper part of her body would be enough. It’d been too long since Shinra had touched her and she lacked the courage to go further than that. For now, enjoying Shinra’s warmth as he fondled her breasts was more than enough.

After gathering more courage, Shinra’s hand boldly wandered lower, but his beloved told him not to go there by smacking his hand. He laughed nervously and tried to pull it back, but Celty captured it and placed it on her breasts again as her body shook with silent laughter. Swallowing thickly, Shinra went back to playing with those fluffy mounds of what he could only describe as pure bliss while he tried to ignore the growing hardness in his pants. He was dying to take Celty, but he knew that rushing her would only push her away since his darling was pretty shy.

“I love you,” he uttered softly. Celty tensed and Shinra instantly regretted having said it, thinking that she was still mad at him. His own hands had frozen on her body as he waited for her to say or do something, heart ratcheting inside his chest as he wondered if perhaps she didn’t love him anymore.

Celty could easily guess what Shinra was thinking after knowing him for so many years, so she raised the PDA and typed her reply before the heart she could feel beating against her back burst through Shinra’s ribcage. [I love you too.]

In the next moment, Shinra was squeezing her to his chest, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder and murmuring “I love you” over and over again until he heard a sound coming from the PDA, indicating that Celty had received a message and he finally stopped, knowing that it was not nice to read it but still staring intently at it as she opened it.

「 Shizu-chan woke up and he’d appreciate it if you could go fetch some clothes for him. Thanks~ 」

“Bastard,” Shinra hissed as he glowered at the PDA’s screen with all the animosity in the world, very much aware that his fun time was over since Celty wouldn’t hesitate to go help a friend in need.

[I’m sorry, but I have to go,] Celty apologized awkwardly just as the shadow started to cover her chest area and she pulled away from Shinra’s loving embrace.

Smiling, Shinra nodded even as his eye twitched in annoyance. “Of course. I’ll see you later.”

A small moan slipped past his lips as he watched her leave, his cock twitching with how turned on he was after being allowed the freedom to play with her breasts. Shinra waited until Celty closed the door before fumbling with his belt, clumsily pulling down the zipper and grasping his throbbing length, moaning again at the first slide of fingers over the hard length. His whole body was shaking with how turned on he was so he closed his eyes and jerked furiously, thinking of Celty and imagining what it would be like to make love to her.

***

Celty arrived at Izaya’s apartment sometimes during the evening after picking up some clothes from Shizuo’s place. She knocked on the door, somewhat relieved that Izaya had gotten it fixed, and waited for the Informant to open it.

“Thank you for taking the time to do this small errand for me,” Izaya said, smiling, as he invited her inside, closed the door and then made his way back to his desk.

Surprisingly enough, she found Shizuo sitting in what looked like Namie’s chair but at Izaya’s desk, as though the two of them had been looking at something on Izaya’s laptop before she arrived.

“Celty…” Shizuo uttered her name in a trembling voice and tried to get up, but Izaya placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.

“Save the little energy you have if you don’t want to end up passing out again,” Izaya advised, not expecting Shizuo to actually listen to him. Thinking about it, Izaya had to admit that he very much enjoyed a docile Ikebukuro beast instead of a raging one.

“I won’t,” Shizuo assured him and didn’t get up until Izaya shrugged and turned to his laptop. He then slowly and carefully made his way to Celty who was still holding the bag with his clothes inside. “Thanks for bringing this for me,” he told her as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. His friendship with Celty wasn’t what it used to be and it pained him to know that this too was one of the many things he’d ruined, but just like with Izaya, he couldn’t turn back time and make things right. “I’ll take it now,” he said and extended his arm.

Instead of handing him the bag, Celty dropped it, took a step forward and gave him a hug before he could react, Shizuo finally snapping out of his stupor and wrapping his arms around her when he figured that she wouldn’t pull away before he reciprocated the gesture. “I’m sorry,” he apologized in a sorrowful voice, “for everything.”

Celty didn’t pull away and instead tightened her hold around him, simply enjoying the sound of his heartbeat. If she would’ve been capable of crying, she would’ve shed tears of happiness as a feeling of relief washed over her, for a few moments making her forget about all the bad things happening in their lives. Shizuo was alive and that was one of the few things that mattered.

“It wasn’t your fault, Celty,” Shizuo told her in a low enough voice so that Izaya couldn’t hear him. “I know you’re probably blaming yourself for a lot of things right now, but none of them were your fault. You did the best you could in the impossible situation I put you in.”

Realizing that it was starting to get awkward, Celty pulled away and took out the PDA from her pocket. [I’m sorry.]

Shizuo raised a hand and placed it on her shoulder. “Don’t say that. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Elegant fingers hovered momentarily above the keyboard until Celty gathered her addled thoughts and figured out what she wanted to say. [I shouldn’t have ran away like a coward. I should’ve stayed to help both you and Izaya.]

Laughing bitterly, Shizuo pulled back his arm and shoved it into the pocket of his―or better said Izaya’s―sweatpants. “Even after all the mistakes I’ve made, you’re still so nice to me. You’re an angel, Celty.”

[An angel of death; but anyway, may I inquire as to what you’re still doing with Izaya?]

Fearing that he might end up passing out if he continued to stand when he had no energy to do so, Shizuo requested a little something of Celty. “Uhm, can we sit?”

The pale skin and the unfocused gaze were a clear indication that Shizuo was not feeling very well, so Celty grabbed him by the arm and guided him to one of the couches. Once there she helped him sit down and then took a seat next to him. [What are you still doing here, with Izaya?]

“On my way to Izaya’s apartment, a few people took pictures of me and uploaded them online,” Shizuo said, regretting his decision of ignoring those assholes instead of at least trying to take their phones.

[And…?]

“And Izaya showed me all these crazy theories they have about me being alive when I should be dead,” Shizuo growled, anger rising at the mere thought of all the things he’d read online. “Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn about it, but some people are saying that I’ve been a prisoner of the Yakuza this whole time, that Kasuka traded his life for mine and that’s why he’s gone missing.”

[Humans do that when they have nothing better to do.]

“I know, but look at me, Celty. I can’t even stand for more than a few minutes, let alone fight a mob of angry Hanejima Yuuhei fans or the many gangs I’ve pissed off in the past. It’s not that I’m scared, because I’m not, but if I die now, I won’t be able to bring my brother back. I want to leave, but people know where I live and I can’t go home like this,” Shizuo revealed, the last word coming our as a hiss. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

True enough, Celty remembered seeing a few shady people outside Shizuo’s apartment building. [Come to my place,] she offered without thinking.

Shizuo shook his head, immediately regretting the action when the dizziness increased all of a sudden. “I can’t do that to Shinra.”

[I’ll convince him to agree,] Celty promised, but deep down inside she knew the battle had already been lost because Shizuo was the type of person who would choose to sleep on the streets if it meant not bothering his friends. [Your parents,] she then typed enthusiastically. [Your parents would be glad to give you a place to stay at until you feel better.]

“I can’t risk putting them in danger.” Shizuo had tried to keep a steady voice, but it still came out trembling at the thought of his mother crying for her missing son. The thought alone almost brought tears to his eyes but that was something he didn’t want to show Celty so he gathered his strength and stood up. “I’ll go change into something more comfortable.”

[I’ll help you go up the stairs,] Celty offered.

“Thanks, but there’s no need for that. I can do as much,” Shizuo assured her with a pained smile as he walked in the direction of the bag, picked it up and then made his way upstairs.

Celty waited until she heard the sound of the door closing before approaching Izaya and typing on her PDA with a bit too much strength. [What are you scheming now?]

Izaya stopped what he was doing and looked at the PDA hovering near his face. “What you ask? Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he said as he reclined against the chair, smirking.

[Look, I’m sorry for all the things I’ve said and done to you, especially for not being sympathetic enough, but I won’t stand idly if you try to kill Shizuo again.]

“I don’t need your sympathy,” Izaya replied, feeling somewhat offended by the comment. He hated the idea of anyone pitying him, least of all the people who knew him. “Rest assured, I have no plans of ever killing Shizu-chan. If he dies, it won’t be by my hands,” Izaya promised, sounding serious. “I offered to help him because I want him to be alive when they find his brother’s corpse. I want to see with my own two eyes as his soul crumbles to dust. That won’t happen if I let Shizu-chan die now, would it?”

As much as she wanted to punch him in the face, Celty managed to reign in her anger and continue the discussion without inflicting any bodily harm. [You’re the one who probably spread those rumors about Kasuka trading his life for Shizuo’s.]

“Tsk, tsk, Courier-san, why must you always assume the worst when it comes to poor, innocent me?” Izaya chided. “I spread no such rumors.”

[But I’m sure you helped fan the fire.]

Izaya gave no answer, but the shrug and the smile were more than enough. Celty was about to insult him but she stopped mid-sentence while typing when someone rang the doorbell and Izaya got up to open the door.

“Sawazaki-san, it’s been a while! To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Izaya asked as he motioned for the man to come in.

“You left Tokyo even though I told you not to leave the city,” Sawazaki admonished him as he pulled out his phone, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

The man raised the phone and showed Izaya a picture of Shizuo. “This is why I’m here.”

“Shizu-chan looks pretty good for a rotting corpse,” Izaya commented with a cackle. “Isn’t it funny how the victim of the murder you accused me of committing is walking around town, scaring poor citizens to death?”

“I never accused you of murder, Orihara-san, but merely of stabbing Heiwajima Shizuo-san,” Sawazaki corrected him. “If murder is what you assumed I was talking about, it might be because killing Heiwajima-san had been your intention to begin with.”

“Excuse me for a second,” Izaya said and walked over to Celty who was awkwardly standing near his desk.

“Courier-san, can you do me one more favor and take Shizu-chan to the dentist tomorrow?” Izaya asked as he half sat on his desk and folded his arms over his chest. “He’s got a few loose teeth so he can’t eat because of that. As long as he can’t eat, he won’t get any better, and a weak Ikebukuro beast is of no use to me. Around noon would be ideal.”

Swallowing the insults threatening to burst through violent typing, Celty took a moment to calm down before giving him her answer. [I’ll do it for Shizuo, and not because you asked it of me.]

“I wouldn’t have it any other way~” Izaya replied in a singsong voice as he pushed himself away from his desk, placed an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And say hi to Shinra from me, will you? Thanks~”

Once Celty was out of view, he closed the door and made his way to the detective who had taken a seat on one of the couches. “So what is it that you want from me?” Izaya asked as he sat down on the other.

“Did you know Heiwajima-san has been spotted around town?”

Izaya fought the urge to roll his eyes and instead settled on laughing. “Of course I knew. There’s this little thing called the Internet where you can find all sorts of interesting stuff, like pictures of the person you’ve been accused of murde―”

“Stabbing,” Sawazaki corrected him yet again.

“Fine, stabbing. The person you were accused of stabbing walking around the city instead of rotting in the ground; or scattering in the wind, since Kasuka-kun claimed to have burned his brother’s corpse. Either way, I don’t―”

“Who are you?” Shizuo asked while standing at the top of the stairs, both men turning to him at the same time. “And why are you talking about me?”

Sawazaki stood up, his shocked expression turning into one of confusion. “I’m Sawazaki Kotaro from the Criminal Investigation Bureau. May I ask what you’re doing with the man your brother accused of trying to kill you?”

Slowly and carefully, Shizuo made his way downstairs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Izaya had nothing to do with what happened,” Shizuo lied since he needed Izaya and he couldn’t afford to let the bastard get arrested over things that had happened in the past. The only thing that mattered was finding Kasuka, and if that meant working with the devil, then so be it.

On the outside, Izaya kept a calm demeanor, but on the inside he was roaring with laughter. Shizuo, the idiot he’d tried to kill, was covering for him even after all the hell he’d put him through.

Frowning, Sawazaki turned to Izaya and then back to Shizuo, wondering what the hell was going on. “If that’s the case, then who stabbed you?”

Shizuo shrugged and made his way to the couch. Izaya’s apartment was already starting to spin around him and he didn’t want to look pathetic in front of a stranger; at least no more pathetic than he already looked. “I don’t know,” he finally answered as he reclined against the couch.

“You don’t know,” Sawazaki repeated, unprofessionally ending his comment with a snort. At that point, he no longed cared, seeing how they were taking him for a fool.

“That’s what I said. I was taking a walk, I felt something sting my neck, I got dizzy and then I woke up in the hospital.”

Despite how good of an actor he was in general, Izaya still failed to contain the laughter threatening to come out. Embarrassingly enough, it burst through his lips in chocked sounds, forcing him to raise a hand to cover his mouth.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Sawazaki pocketed his phone. “I see. I would appreciate it if you could come to the police station sometimes during the next few days and declare that in writing.”

“Sure.”

Still shaking his head, Sawazaki made his way to the door with Izaya following behind him. “Thank you for your 'cooperation,’” the man said before he stepped out of the apartment and went down the hallway towards the elevator.

Chuckling, Izaya closed the door and made his way to Shizuo, laughing as he sat on the couch next to the well-behaved beast and ruffled his hair. “Good mutt,” he praised him in a cheerful tone.

“What the fuck, flea?” Shizuo snapped and raised his hand to grab Izaya’s wrist in order to push it away, but a warning sound made him change his mind.

“Tsk, tsk, Shizu-chan, I thought I made it clear that you can’t touch me without permission.”

Shizuo growled and his brow twitched as Izaya continued to pat his head, but he made no further attempts to stop him. “So you can do whatever the fuck you want to me and I can’t even push your hand away?” he asked, tone dripping with irritation.

“Exactly~” Izaya answered in a singsong voice, “since you did oh so many things to my body without permission.”

Shizuo nearly chocked at the memory, the guilt suddenly spiking also increasing the nausea.

“Besides,” Izaya continued, “good mutts are grateful for whatever they receive.”

“I’m not your goddam mutt!” Shizuo tried to argue as he moved away from Izaya, leaving him with his hand hanging in the air.

The smile disappeared from Izaya’s face as he lowered his hand. “You are whatever the hell I want you to be,” he stated. “If you want me to find your brother that is, you dumb mongrel.”

Torn between snapping at Izaya and keeping his mouth shut, Shizuo didn’t know what to do or say. “Whatever,” he finally settled on, mumbling unhappily.

“Right now, I own you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya reminded him, smirking dangerously as he grabbed the beast’s chin in a tight grip and stared deeply into the pale brown eyes. “Don’t ever forget that.”

Shizuo swallowed thickly but said nothing.

Izaya hummed in approval before releasing him and making his way to the desk, face almost splitting in two with how hard he was smiling. After all the fear and the pain, having a docile beast to boss around was quite therapeutic in a messed up kind of way. He almost felt like talking to Fujita Shizuka, but that would have to wait until Shizuo either went to sleep or passed out.

***

Kasuka woke up with a groan followed by a moan of agony as he tried to move. Everything was a haze for a few blissful moments, until he recalled what had happened before he blacked out and his eyes went wide, mouth opening in a silent scream and heart speeding up to a dangerous rhythm. He wanted to believe that nothing had happened to him while he was out but he couldn’t be sure when everything hurt after the beating he'd received.

Nearly choking with disgust, he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, alternating between moaning, groaning and hissing in pain every time his body protested against the movement. The fact that he was completely naked only heightened the nausea he was experiencing, but after shifting around a bit he realized that most of the pain was coming from his stomach and face and that his behind appeared to be unharmed. He let out the breath he didn’t even now he was holding and lay back down on the floor, feeling boneless.

There was dry blood on his hands and face but he couldn’t find the energy or will to get up and wash it off, not after the scare he’d gotten. He’d failed to choke Slon to death with the chain and now he was never going to get another chance. The Russian would probably be on his guard at all times and that meant he was screwed if not literally than at least figuratively. His best chance of escaping and going back to Ruri had been viciously stomped on by the clearly much stronger man and now he was left with trying to figure out another way out even though he doubted he could find one.

Judging by how little he could see, it looked like he’d been out for quite some time because there was no light filtering through the cracks in the boarded window and the room was close to pitch black. Kasuka found it strange that Slon beat him up, undressed him, but seemed to have left before doing anything to him. He didn’t remember the man having any trouble trying to rape him back when Izaya was filming the attack, which meant there had to be a reason for the Russian to not go through with it. Whatever it was, Kasuka hoped that it wouldn’t change too soon. He could still vividly recall the terror he’d felt before blacking out and it was something he hoped he would never get to experience again.

Either way, sleeping on the floor didn’t sound like a very good idea no matter how much he wanted to lie there until the pain went away, so he slowly and carefully stood up and then staggered to the bed, a few sounds of pain slipping past his lips because of how much his stomach hurt. He was probably covered in bruises and the dried blood stuck to his skin itched, but he lacked the energy to wash it away after the brutal beating he’d received. He was in fact surprised that none of his bones had been broken with how hard Slon had hit him.

The soft mattress felt much better than the cold floor, but Slon must’ve taken the blanket and the sheets because he couldn’t find them so he curled into a tight ball and wrapped his arms around his torso, hoping not to freeze to death over night. “R-Ruri,” he spoke the name, teeth chattering from the cold even as he recalled the warmth emanating from her delicate body during the many nights they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. How he missed her…

Notes:

In Chapter 34 - Eye of the Storm, Shizuo tells Izaya that he would've let him go if Izaya had apologized, so following that thought, I went and tried to make it so that Izaya got out of that one relatively unharmed (after a conversation I had with Kajune), and that's how Fragile Reality was born. ^^

'mongrel' - Majora suggested this one. xD

Chapter 72: Alternative Therapy

After much digging, the only thing Izaya found was a really dark video footage, shot by one of the reporters stalking the actor, of the van leaving the parking lot, but the driver couldn’t be seen so the thing was completely useless. Luckily, that didn’t mean everything was lost. There were many cameras around Tokyo, so even if the police wouldn’t be able to find the exact location where the van had stopped, it would at least give them an idea which way it went. Izaya himself didn’t have access to the footage like the police did, but he had contacts inside the department ready to send him their findings. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like there was anything else he could do until then.

Sighing, he reclined against his desk chair and started to swivel in it, stopping suddenly no more than ten or so seconds later when he realized that he was alone and that he could talk to his therapist in peace. It’d be awkward after the last discussion they had, but it wasn’t like he’d killed anyone and the woman had no idea who he was anyway. Chuckling nervously, he picked up the phone from where it was lying on the desk.

“Nakura-san?” the woman asked since he was the only person calling her with a hidden number.

“Yes,” Izaya confirmed in a cheerful tone.

“I was worried something bad must’ve happened during our last discussion since you ended the call so abruptly.”

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry about that. My fingers were bloody so the phone slipped out of my hand.”

“…”

“Just kidding!” Izaya said, snickering.

“I see…”

“Or am I~?” Izaya continued in a singsong voice, starting to enjoy this little game. If anything, the fact that she was a therapist made the whole thing that much more fun since it’d be a challenge to screw with her head. There was a voice telling him to stop, that he was being a dick and that he’d only end up hurting himself this way, but Izaya ignored it and continued, the sadistic urge within him too strong to resist. “By the way, I wasn’t lying back then when I said that someone was bleeding on the floor of my apartment.”

“…”

Thinking that he’d got her, Izaya let out a mock-gasp. “Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re going out of your way to scare me. Are you testing me to see if I’ll run away at the first sign of danger?” Fujita Shizuka continued, not in the least deterred by his words.

Izaya swallowed thickly but said nothing.

“Are you worried that I won’t be able to handle it?”

“That’s not―”

“I believe that’s exactly what this is,” she replies in a calm voice, “but you don’t have to worry about that, so why don’t you start by telling me why you beat someone bloody?”

Izaya pulled the phone away from his ear, quivering thumb hovering above the button to end the call. This woman he’d never even met in person was reading him way too easily, and for someone like him, someone who had always done his best to hide his real self, it was terrifying, but he knew that if he ended the call he’d probably never talk to her again, and since that wasn’t what he wanted, especially after finally admitting to himself that he needed help, he brought the phone back to his ear and took a deep breath. “Because he forced me to change,” Izaya admitted reluctantly.

“I see. I have a question for you, but you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to, at least not until you’re ready to do so. Did that man hurt you physically, emotionally or both?”

The question took Izaya so badly by surprise that he forgot how to form words for a few moments. “I don’t want to… I c-can’t…” he stuttered a bit. He wasn’t yet ready to talk about it so he kept shaking his head while gripping the phone tightly, knuckles turning white with how hard he was squeezing it.

“Like I said, we don’t have to talk about it yet if you―”

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Izaya apologized in a low voice before he ended the call and placed the phone on the desk. He hated how sometimes all it took was a word, a comment or a question to make him lose his cool demeanor, the mere thought of even admitting to having been assaulted by Shizuo to his therapist enough to make his blood freeze.

Disappointed by his own failure to continue the conversation, he placed his elbows on the desk and rested his head in his palms, cursing under his breath. The point of having a therapist was to tell her things and hopefully move forward instead of remaining stuck in the past, but he wasn’t used to allowing a stranger to pick his mind apart, especially when it came to what Shizuo had done to him. To think that he’d lose his courage over something as simple as admitting he’d been physically hurt was embarrassing, but no matter how much he wanted to call her back, he couldn’t gather the strength until about twenty minutes later. Unfortunately, it was too late by then since she wasn’t picking up, meaning her break was over and that she was in a session with a patient.

Sighing, he stood up and started pacing the living room, wondering how things were going with Shizuo. The idiot had passed out on the couch sometimes during the night while Izaya himself spent it online, trying to find any clue that might lead him to Kasuka’s location. He was just thinking about making something to eat or ordering some fatty tuna when he heard the sound of the doorbell going off and he rushed to the door, hoping it was not Namie since he’d told her to stay home or do whatever the hell she wanted, like stalking Seiji and his girlfriend.

Luckily, it turned out to be Celty and a half passed out Shizuo she was carrying.

“Did something happen?” Izaya asked as he pulled Shizuo’s other arm over his shoulders and helped Celty carry the drooling idiot to the couch where they laid him down.

Celty was still shaking after the ordeal she’d been put through and she needed a few minutes to find the strength needed to answer Izaya’s question. She sat down next to Izaya and she pulled out her PDA, almost dropping the device in the process with how nervous she still was.

“Courier-san, are you okay?” Izaya asked, brows furrowing in confusion.

[No, I’m not okay! The whole thing was a nightmare,] Celty furiously typed her answer, fingers still trembling.

Izaya momentarily turned to Shizuo who was lying on the other couch, eyes half open and moaning in what was obviously pain. The beast didn’t look like it was quite there, so Izaya turned to Celty again who seemed to be typing a long message.

[The local anesthesia the dentist administered didn’t work, so Shizuo lost his temper because of the (as he described it) brain melting pain he was experiencing when the man started working on his teeth. I’m assuming he tried to ignore it but eventually it must’ve been too much because he nearly broke the dentist’s arm along with some of the equipment there.]

The first impulse Izaya got was to laugh, but he successfully held it in and gave Celty a sympathetic look as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear that, Courier-san. I should’ve known that Shizu-chan would give you a hard time since he’s such a monster.”

[It’s not his fault the anesthetic didn’t work!]

Not in the mood to get into an argument about how Shizuo’s monstrous body was the reason why the anesthetic hadn’t worked, Izaya put on an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for interrupting you; please continue.”

[The dentist was stumped and didn’t know what to do, so I called Shinra and asked him if he had something that could help even if it meant knocking Shizuo out.]

“Did he?” Izaya innocently inquired even though he already knew the answer to that question.

[He said he did, so I went home, picked up the small vial and then went back to the dentist’s office where I administered the anesthetic myself since the man didn’t want to risk further angering Shizuo.]

“And it worked, huh?”

[I believe so, since the dentist was able to finally fix Shizuo’s teeth. Don’t give him any solid food for a few days, only liquid ones, like soup; and also, don’t make it too hot or too cool.]

“I’ll make sure he won’t stuff his face with pudding and other such disgusting things while he’s in my care,” Izaya promised, raising a hand and holding it over his heart.

[You’re creeping me out, Izaya. You’ve been trying to kill Shizuo this whole time and now you’re taking care of him. How does that make any sense?]

“I already told you, Courier-san. It’d be no fun if Shizu-chan died before the police finds Kasuka’s corpse. And besides,” he then added as his eyes drifted over to the still only half-conscious beast, “Shizu-chan and I made a deal, one that benefits us both.” Smiling, he turned to Celty again. “A half-dead beast is of no use to me, so I’ll do my best to get him back on his feet as soon as possible.”

Celty shuddered at the sight of Izaya’s sly smirk. At least it didn’t look like the man was hell-bent on killing Shizuo anymore and that was more than she could ask for. That aside, Shizuo was his own person and if her friend had decided to make a deal with Izaya, then it wasn’t her business to interfere. [I have an errand to run, so I’ll be going now,] she told Izaya and stood up, giving Shizuo one last glance before walking out of the apartment.

Izaya waited until Celty was out the door before he stood up and took a seat on the couch next to Shizuo. “Ne, Shizu-chan, are you dying or something?” he asked and leaned over Shizuo, sly smirk turning malicious at the sight of the swollen, bruised face. “Shizu-chan…?” he asked again, this time using his index finger to poke Shizuo in the swollen cheek, making the brute whimper. He was tempted to push the finger in harder to hear more of that sweet sound, but he refrained from doing so and instead went back to his desk to look into something for Shiki, leaving Shizuo to suffer alone.

***

After the tough night he had while nearly freezing to death, Kasuka spent the next morning and most of the afternoon curled into a tight ball, trembling and stomach growling as he went one more day, the second, without food. He was starting to feel a bit dizzy and he was hoping that Slon would bring him some food soon because the longer he went without it, the harder it would be for him to focus on trying to find a way out of there, especially with the nasty headache he was having.

It was late in the afternoon when Kasuka heard the sound of the door being unlocked and he moved farther into the corner, wrapping his arms around his knees and crossing his ankles to hide himself from Slon’s view as much as possible. He hated to admit it, but the man scared him. Despite how much he didn’t want to see the Russian, he was still glad he’d get some food, but what he got instead was an empty-handed Slon, the one eye Kasuka could see burning with what looked like a mix of anger and amusement.

“Feel like talking yet?” Slon asked as he stood there next to the bed, towering over the curled up actor who was trying to look brave even though Slon could sense that the man was finally starting to understand the situation he was in.

Kasuka shook his head without raising it while he struggled to suppress the fight or flight impulse, very much aware that both options would lead to him getting beat up or worse. Just knowing that the Russian was seeing him like that, naked, made his skin crawl, but there was nothing he could do about it as long as he had nothing to cover himself with.

“I still can’t tell whether you’re being brave or just plain stupid,” Slon said as he leaned forward and grabbed a fistful of Kasuka’s hair. “Would finishing what we started long ago convince you to tell me what I want to know?”

Kasuka was having a hard time hearing what the man was saying when his heart was beating so loudly. He hoped that Slon would release him soon, but that didn’t turn out to be the case and the impulse to run away suddenly spiked when the Russian placed the other hand on the his left knee, the mere touch making Kasuka flinch despite how hard he’d tried to contain it. “No, it won’t,” he answered in a surprisingly steady voice, all the while fighting the nausea threatening to overcome him as Slon’s hand moved lower, the bandaged fingers sending goose bumps as they traveled down his lower leg.

“You’re one tough nut to crack,” Slon remarked moments before he released Kasuka. “But you will break eventually,” he added in a confident tone. “Everyone does.”

***

Shizuo continued to lie down for a long time on Izaya’s couch, trying to get over the horror of what he’d experienced. It was sometimes during the evening, when the drug finally wore off, that he finally found the will to move, groaning as he sat up.

“The sleeping beast is finally up,” Izaya remarked as he stood up from his desk chair and went to check up on Shizuo who looked like he was having a hard time staying awake.

“…ne.”

“What?” Izaya asked as he leaned in, bringing his ear closer to Shizuo’s lips.

“Phone,” Shizuo repeated. “Give me your phone, flea.”

Izaya blinked in surprise but made no move to fish out his phone from the pocket of his pants. “What do you need a phone for?” he inquired as he sat down next to Shizuo.

“Just give me the damn phone,” Shizuo hissed, body trembling with how angry he was.

“Eh?! But I can’t give Shizu-chan my phone. What if he wants to spy on my contacts and messages?” Izaya whined, pouting, as he shook his head and folded his arms in front of his chest.

“Fleaaa…” Shizuo dragged the nickname in a threatening tone, not in the mood for games when the urge to inflict violence upon someone was so hard to rein in. “Call Shinra and give me the phone.”

Now curious to see what this was all about, he fished out his phone, called Shinra and handed the phone to Shizuo.

“Hey,” Shinra answered in a cheerful voice.

“I’m going to break your fucking bones; all of them, one by one,” Shizuo promised in a dangerous voice as his whole body trembled with the effort it took to not crush the phone, the coffee table, the couch and perhaps even Izaya.

“Why so violent?” Shinra asked, sounding surprised but not quite.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!” Shizuo growled even though every word coming out of his mouth made the pain a thousand times worse.

Beside him, Izaya was starting to worry that Shizuo might lose his temper. Out of a sense of self preservation, he put some distance between himself and the enraged beast, figuring out that it was safer to not be in arm’s reach if Shizuo snapped. Even so, he couldn’t deny that he was dying to know why the idiot was so angry at Shinra, so he continued to listen intently.

“Oi, bastard, did you hear me?” Shizuo continued when Shinra gave no reply.

“I did.”

“And??”

“And what?” Shinra asked innocently.

“I fucking felt everything, you sadistic piece of shit!” Shizuo shouted into the phone, now seeing red with how furious he was.

Izaya gasped in genuine surprise, remembering what Celty had told him about Shinra giving her something to put Shizuo under so that the dentist could work in peace.

“Oops, it seems I might’ve given Celty the wrong vial. You have my sincere apologies.”

“You don’t even sound remorseful!” Shizuo roared.

Izaya flinched at the sound, the angry voice reminding him too much of the wild beast from that night. There was just something utterly terrifying about the blood thirst emanating from the monster, enough to make him stand up and move away from there. When he realized that he’d ran away he was already sitting in his desk chair, nervously flicking open his switchblade while staring intently at the back of Shizuo’s head.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” Shizuo kept repeating the word like mantra, until Shinra started talking again, the doctor’s next words taking him by surprise and adding to the nausea he was already feeling.

“It must’ve been horrible to just lie there, unable to do anything while someone caused you immeasurable pain. It was horrible, wasn’t it?” Shinra asked as he reclined against the couch in his apartment in Ikebukuro, smirking wildly. “Kind of like what Izaya must’ve felt that night. You remember, don’t you?”

Shocked that Shinra would ask something like that, all Shizuo could do was listen, his voice not coming out now that he understood what the doctor was trying to do.

“Just look at the bright side. It could’ve been worse, much, much worse. Like… I don’t know, imagine that instead of a dentist trying to fix your teeth, there had been someone else, slicing you up and pulling out your organs one by one. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that would be, and I can imagine a lot of things…”

“I’m never going to hurt Izaya again, you asshole,” Shizuo whispered into the phone after turning his head to the side and noticing a rather pale Izaya staring at him.

“I certainly hope so,” Shinra spoke cheerfully, ending the call before Shizuo could threaten him again.

It took a lot of self-control from Shizuo’s part to not crush the phone, knowing that Izaya wouldn’t appreciate it. After peeling it from his ear and taking a few deep breaths, he placed the phone on the couch and did nothing but blankly stare at the turned off TV for a while, still in shock that Shinra would find such a fucked up way to give him a taste of what might happen if he dared hurt Izaya. He knew the two had grown closer, but it still surprised him that someone cared so much about the flea. He was just thinking how scary Shinra was when he noticed a hand waving in front of his face and he realized that Izaya was standing there. “Sorry, what? My mind was someplace else.”

“Take these painkillers,” Izaya said as he handed Shizuo a couple of pills and a glass of water, hoping to calm the beast down if only a little since an enraged Ikebukuro monster was making him nervous.

Shizuo popped the pills into his mouth but was afraid of drinking the water so he struggled to swallow them without it, cringing a bit at the feeling of the pills getting stuck in his throat.

“I have no idea why Shinra would do that, seeing how he was worried you might kill him last time he was here because, you know, he was the one who gave me the means to take away your ability to move back when I left you to bleed to death,” Izaya mused as he placed the glass on the coffee table and took a seat on the other couch, as far away from Shizuo as possible.

“Who knows what that idiot is thinking half the time?” Shizuo mumbled. He concluded it would be best if Izaya didn’t know that Shinra had pretty much threatened to slice him to pieces while still alive if he dared hurt his friend since he wasn’t in the mood to hear Izaya’s laughter. Then again, both Shinra and Izaya had a few loose screws, so it was no wonder the two of them had ended up becoming friends. The threat of being cut open while still alive wasn’t something Shizuo hadn’t heard before, but he finally understood how serious Shinra was about it.

***

After the whole Shinra thing, Shizuo only stood up and went to change into something more comfortable about an hour later. The painkillers Izaya had given him appeared to be useless and he was fucking starving but he couldn’t eat because of his damn teeth. When he’d knelt and begged Izaya to give him Kasuka back, he never imagined that the flea would end up fucking up his teeth so badly. The insect’s ring might’ve played a big part in that, especially with how hard the flea had hit him. Izaya’s hand was still bandaged and it looked like the bastard was having a hard time typing with it.

When he went downstairs again, Shizuo found Izaya eating fatty tuna, the louse smirking like the piece of shit that he was. Shizuo would’ve been happy with some instant noodles, but he didn’t want to feel any more brain melting pain so he chose to not eat until it was safe to do so again.

“Here,” Izaya chirped as he handed Shizuo another pill.

Shizuo’s stomach growled and he swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth at the sight of Izaya’s dinner, fighting back the urge to wolf down the whole thing. Looking like a kicked puppy, he tore his eyes away from the delicious-looking pieces of meat and turned to Izaya who was still smirking like a fucking bastard.

“Vitamins,” Izaya answered Shizuo’s unspoken question. “I don’t like you enough to make you soup.”

“Thanks,” Shizuo mumbled as he took the pill, grateful that Izaya would even consider giving him one. The flea was acting like a decent human being and it made Shizuo feel like shit, especially when comparing Izaya’s behavior to how Shizuo himself had treated the man in the past. And he wasn’t stupid to not understand that Izaya was doing it to make him realize what a monster he’d been, but he was thankful nonetheless for the kindness shown to him, even if the motives were anything but pure.

Izaya was about to tell Shizuo that he had no new information on Kasuka when he heard the doorbell and he got up to answer the door. He expected it to be Celty for some reason, so he couldn’t have been more surprise when he was met with the sight of Namiko and Kichirou Heiwajima.

“We apologize for the inconvenience, but is this the residence of Orihara Izaya-san?” Kichirou asked the young man who opened the door.

“Yes, yes it is,” Izaya answered, finally figuring out why they were there. “I assume you’re here to see Shizuo.”

Namiko nodded, anxious to see her son. “We were told by Sawazaki-san that Shizuo is staying here. If he’s really here, can we please see him?” Namiko pleaded, body trembling in a mix of joy at finding out that her eldest son was awake and heartache knowing that her youngest was still missing.

It took Izaya a few moments to get over his shock. “Of course,” he answered, smiling lazily, as he moved out of the way and motioned for them to come in.

Shizuo, who had heard his parents’ voices, was standing still by the desk, his heart mostly filled with pain.

“Shizuo!” Namiko called her son’s name and rushed to him, squeezing him into a tight hug before pulling away and looking at him with tears in her eyes. “I never lost hope that you’d one day wake up,” she told him in a quivering voice as she raised a hand and gently moved a few strands of hair out of Shizuo’s eyes. “You gave your poor mother quite the scare! Just look at how thin you are,” she sniffled as she continued to caress his head, vision turning blurry because of the many tears gathering in her eyes.

Kichirou patted him on the back. “It’s good to see you, son.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Shizuo told them in a brittle voice, overwhelmed by emotions. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“We’re just happy to have you back,” Namiko told her son, hoping to remind him how much they loved him. “I just wish you had come home instead of letting us worry about you ever since we got the call from the hospital.”

Overcome by guilt, Shizuo lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, son. We’re grateful to see that you have a friend you could go to. Speaking of your friend, where is he?”

Shizuo’s eyes darted around the apartment, only now noticing that Izaya must’ve slipped out without any of them noticing. He felt bad that he and his family had bothered Izaya in his home, so he made a mental note to apologize when the man came back. “I think he left so that we could talk in peace.”

“It was very kind of him, but he shouldn’t have. I’m a bit confused though,” Kichirou commented as he scratched his head. “Wasn’t Izaya that kid you kept complaining about all the time back when you were in high school?”

“Yeah, it’s him,” Shizuo answered reluctantly. Looking back, he felt stupid when he remembered how much he used to bitch about Izaya, especially to Kasuka.

“So you’re friends now?” Namiko asked.

“No, but finding out things and people is his job, so he’s going to help me find Kasuka.”

“I’m sorry that you had to wake up to the news of your brother having been kidnapped,” Namiko apologized, as though it was somehow her fault. “I know how much you love him. You know what? Here, let’s sit down, since you don’t look so well,” she suggested as she grabbed him by the arm and led him to the couch, her husband following their example and sitting down as well.

Shizuo placed his elbows on his knees and rested his head on his palms, fingers digging hard into his scalp. “If I could, I’d take his place. He’s so much better than me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t ever say that again,” Namiko admonished him and raised a hand to gently run it through her son’s locks. “We love you both the same.”

As the tears started to fill his eyes, Shizuo found it harder and harder to speak in a steady voice. “I don’t… I don’t deserve your love.”

Kichirou sighed. “Stop saying things like that. You’re upsetting your mother.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

***

Izaya was ambling through Shinjuku’s streets, trying to push down the jealousy rearing its ugly head after seeing how much Shizuo’s parents loved a monster who Izaya believed didn’t deserve to be loved by anyone. It wasn’t that Izaya’s own parents were horrible, but they were terrible at showing they cared, if they even did. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen or talked to them, and he was still rather upset that his family hadn’t even bothered to check whether or not he was still alive back when there were all those rumors about him being dead. Shinra, who wasn’t even family, probably cared more about him than his own sisters and parents put together. Such a thought made him sad, even though he would never admit it to anyone, most of the time not even to himself.

Speaking of Shinra, he was already missing the sadistic idiot, but it was late and he didn’t want to bother him when the poor guy was probably busy trying to get into Celty’s shadowy pants. He chuckled to himself and turned left in the direction of the train station, suddenly in the mood to hear Simon apologize.

***

As usual, Izaya found the tall man outside, handing fliers to people and inviting them to Russia Sushi. Normally, Simon would’ve greeted him in a cheerful voice, but now they were both staring at each other, Simon with his right hand frozen in the air, flier dangling in the wind, while Izaya was giving him a hurt look. Seeing how the man wasn’t trying to chase him out of there, it meant Simon had heard the news about Shizuo being alive, meaning that the Russian was probably feeling guilty for punching him so hard for no reason.

“Добрый вечер,” Simon greeted him after a long, awkward silence. “Как поживаете?”

“Спасибо, хорошо. Что нового?” Izaya asked, a bit surprised that Simon would use formal speech with him. If that wasn’t a sign of guilt, then he didn’t know what was.

Simon smiled awkwardly as he lowered his hand. “Fresh sushi, you want?”

Izaya smiled back. “Sure! Give me the best you have.” He followed Simon inside and sat down in the back as usual, the owner of the shop giving him a strange look but not really saying anything. Seeing how he didn’t get to finish his dinner before Shizuo’s parents showed up, he most certainly didn’t mind some fresh sushi or whatever the hell Simon was going to bring him. All he knew was that it wasn’t human.

Five minutes later, Simon came back with a plate of sushi. “On the house.”

“Thanks, Simon!” Izaya chirped happily as he picked up the chopsticks, eyes glowing and mouth watering at the sight.

“Hey, Izaya?”

Momentarily tearing his eyes away from the juicy pieces of fish, Izaya raised his head to look at Simon.

“Is it true that Shizuo is alive?” the Russian asked in a hopeful voice.

“Mhm.”

Unlike that time when he’d punched Izaya because the Informant deserved it, this time Simon felt bad for jumping to conclusions and hurting Izaya, especially when he had a feeling that Izaya had been through some tough times during the past few months. “I’m sorry,” Simon apologized sincerely.

Chuckling, Izaya raised a hand and smacked Simon on the arm. “You’re lucky I can’t stay mad at you for long,” he revealed moments before he stuffed a large piece of sushi into his mouth, eyes rolling in his head at the heavenly taste.

It was good to finally be back to his beloved city after such a long absence.

Notes:

"Добрый вечер." - "Good evening."
“Как поживаете?” - "How are you?"
“Спасибо, хорошо. Что нового?” - "Fine, thank you. What's new?"

Chapter 73: Life Under the Swatter

Izaya waited until around midnight before finally making his way home, hoping that by then Shizuo’s parents were gone so that he wouldn’t have to witness more of those disgusting scenes where a beast was being treated like a human. He couldn’t help but imagine what it would’ve been like if he’d told them what Shizuo had done, and while the horror and shock on their faces was something Izaya would’ve loved to see, it wasn’t worth the humiliation. Sadly, it made him wonder how his own parents and sisters would react if they knew, but just as quickly as he thought about it he dismissed the idea since the mere suspicion that they wouldn’t care made his heart ache.

When Izaya opened the door and entered the apartment, he found Shizuo sitting on the couch, dressed and looking like he was waiting for him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked in a flat tone, clearly not amused by the prospect of the beast leaving and getting himself killed.

Shizuo, who until then had been blankly staring at the wall, somewhat out of it, turned to Izaya. “Oh, hey, welcome back. Listen,” he said as he stood up and slowly made his way to Izaya, “I’m sorry that my parents showed up here unannounced.”

“It’s fine,” Izaya answered with a dismissive gesture. “It’s not like you called them here.” He was in fact pretty annoyed by it but he wasn’t about to let the beast know just how much it had hurt him to witness the scene. Annoyingly enough, Shizuo already knew that his archenemy wasn’t close to his family, which was probably the reason why the idiot was apologizing in the first place. Shizuo was sometimes too observant for his own good and it bothered Izaya because not many could understand him so well. If anything, it was creeping him out more than a little bit, that the man who most hated him knew him so well.

“Yeah, but still, you shouldn’t have had to put up with it,” Shizuo continued, the fact that Izaya was avoiding eye contact and instead pretending to look out the window telling him that the man was in fact highly bothered by it. Luckily, he knew that pushing it would only further upset Izaya, so he chose not to further bother the man by talking about it. “Anyway, as I was saying, I’m going out for a bit.”

“What for?” Izaya inquired in an irritated tone, eyes narrowing into slits. “You can barely stand and you want to go out? Are you that stupid?”

Shizuo awkwardly lowered his head, feeling guilty about what he was about to say since he knew how much Izaya hated his vice. “I need a smoke.” To his surprise, Izaya rolled his eyes and made his way to the desk, for once not insulting him or ranting about how bad cigarettes were for one’s health.

“I’m surprised you lasted this long,” Izaya told him with a sigh as he opened the drawer and picked up a lighter and the cigarette pack he’d stolen from Shizuo that night when he’d fallen asleep on the man’s couch.

Shizuo's eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of the cigarette pack Izaya was holding in his hand. He'd seen the flea smoke before, back when he'd tried to kill him, but he never imagined that Izaya would keep the pack instead of throwing it away after leaving him to bleed to death. 

"Take it," Izaya urged him while shaking his hand, as though the thing was poison and he needed to get rid of it as soon as possible. And it was, because while he could stand in the presence of someone smoking without feeling nauseous, it still brought memories of a night when he’d been taught that gods could break too.

"Thank you," Shizuo uttered softly and slowly made his way to Izaya's desk, carefully taking the cigarette pack and the lighter out of Izaya's hands without touching the man.

"But you can't smoke in here," Izaya told Shizuo just as the dumb brute was about to light up a cigarette. "Follow me."

Shizuo didn't argue and instead followed Izaya out the door and up the stairs, not at all surprised that Izaya was leading him to the rooftop. “You really like heights, don't you?" he mumbled as he flicked open the lighter and lit up the cigarette, filling his lungs with nicotine and exhaling the smoke with a sigh of relief. He'd been itching to smoke one since he'd woken up, but between finding out that Kasuka had been kidnapped, getting beat up into unconsciousness and then getting tortured by a dentist because Shinra was a sadistic bastard, he hadn't had much time to buy a pack.

"You can come here to smoke whenever you want," Izaya told him as he sat down on the edge, chuckling a bit at the way in which Shizuo's expression changed from one of pure bliss to worry. 

"Oi, flea, that's dangerous," Shizuo warned as he raised a hand, tempted to grab and pull the smirking bastard away from the edge.

"Aww, I didn't know Shizu-chan's cared," Izaya teased, swinging his legs in the wind while watching Shizuo who was standing to his right.

“I don’t,” Shizuo muttered and took a drag from the cigarette, fingers still twitching to grab Izaya and pull him to safety, “but I still need you to find Kasuka. You’re no good to me as a stain on concrete.”

Frowning, Izaya tore his eyes away from Shizuo’s face to look down at the street below. “I won’t fall unless you push me.”

“I won’t push you,” Shizuo stated with a roll of his eyes.

“Why not? You’ve always wanted to see me dead,” Izaya continued in a cold voice. “Like that night when you left me to bleed to death. It would’ve been more merciful to just kill me instead.”

Without a word, Shizuo lowered himself into a crouching position and then sat down next to Izaya.

“What’s this, hmm?” Izaya inquired in a slighting irritated tone, his expression unwillingly alternating between amusement, annoyance and a bit of worry.

“You’ve always wanted to see me dead too,” Shizuo replied calmly as he leaned forward a bit to better see the street below. “One push and I’m out of your life forever.”

With a sound of annoyance, Izaya snapped his head to the other side and folded his arms over his chest. “I refuse to dirty my hands with the blood of a filthy beast.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with that when you stabbed me and left me to bleed to death.” It wasn’t that he was blaming Izaya for trying to kill him, especially after what happened, but he found it strange how the insect had done a one hundred and eighty degrees turn, going from trying to kill him to doing his best to keep him safe.

The frown was replaced by a sadistic smirk as Izaya turned to Shizuo and raised a hand to grab a few locks of dyed hair. “Things change,” Izaya said, still not letting go of Shizuo’s hair. “A dead Shizu-chan is no fun. Besides, you can’t die as long as I don’t allow it.”

It took Shizuo a lot of self-restraint to not grab Izaya’s wrist and push the bastard’s hand away, the mere touch making his skin crawl because of the sadistic glee he could see glowing in those eyes that reminded him so much of two pools of blood. Izaya scared him more than anyone in the world, not because the man could hurt him physically but because Izaya knew many of his weaknesses and how to exploit them. Shizuo dreaded the mere thought of what Izaya would do next, and yet he lacked the will to raise his hand and push Izaya off the building, not because he needed the insect to find Kasuka, but because he didn’t want the flea to die. “You do know that I don’t live to entertain you, do you?” he mumbled unhappily.

“Oh, but you do,” Izaya assured him as he released the blonde locks and wrapped his hand around Shizuo’s nape. “The only reason you’re still alive is because I’m allowing it.”

As he gazed deep into Izaya’s eyes, Shizuo took another drag from the cigarette and blew the smoke into the man’s face, hoping to force him to pull back that cold, bony hand. “I could say the same thing to you.”

Coughing, Izaya pulled back his hand and glowered at Shizuo, now having to fight the temptation of really pushing the idiot off the building. “You’re disgusting, Shizu-chan,” he hissed as soon as he stopped coughing. Even after smoking a couple of times himself, he still couldn’t help but sometimes cough if he inhaled what he could only describe as poison. “Anyway, finish your cigarette already so that we can go back.”

“You don’t have to babysit me,” Shizuo pointed out.

“And risk letting you fall off the building? Ha! No can do, Shizu-chan. I’m staying here until you’re done and then we’re going back together.”

“You really don’t want me to die, do you?” Shizuo asked, surprised that Izaya was so adamant about keeping him alive.

“Shizu-chan is that toy I never want to stop breaking~” Izaya confessed in a singsong voice.

“Great,” Shizuo mumbled as he stubbed the remainder of the cigarette into the building’s concrete and carefully stood up. Izaya did the same and then the two of them made their way back to the apartment in silence, neither in the mood to further discuss the reasons why they haven’t killed each other yet.

“Go to sleep, Shizu-chan,” Izaya ordered as he sat down at his desk. “You need sleep to recover your strength.”

“Yeah, okay, but I’m sleeping on the couch from now on,” Shizuo announced, still feeling embarrassed about having slept in Izaya’s bed. It felt wrong for too many reasons and he doubted he could get any rest knowing that was probably the same bed in which Izaya had most likely cried himself to sleep a few times since that accursed night.

From behind his laptop, Izaya snorted but didn’t raise his head to meet Shizuo’s eyes. “You are sorely mistaken if you think I’m going to sleep in that bed you’ve soiled with your vile presence.”

Izaya’s words hit him like a whip, any counterargument he might’ve had dying on his lips. “Fine,” he eventually hissed in annoyance as he turned on his heels and went upstairs, knowing that fighting with Izaya was pointless when the man was like that, not even paying attention to him and instead typing away at the laptop’s keyboard like there was no tomorrow.

***

Four more days had passed since Slon’s last visit and Kasuka could do nothing but drink water to fill his stomach. His injured knee hurt less so it was a bit easier to move around, but now he was feeling weak which unfortunately meant that his chances of escaping continued to decrease the longer he went without sustenance. Even after four days of doing nothing but lying in bed, he couldn’t find a good plan to escape because Slon was so much bigger than he was and he still had no weapon he could use against the stronger man.

Sometimes, especially at night, when there was no light coming into the room through the cracks in the boarded window, Kasuka worried that Izaya might try to go after Shizuo now that he was gone or that Ruri had already released the video and that his parents were crushed by what they had seen on it.

Most of the time though he was worried that the door might swing open and Slon would come in to finally finish what he’d started that day long ago when he’d first met the man. Just as he was thinking about it for what felt like the millionth time since he woke up that day, he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps and he curled into the corner once again, trying to hide as much of himself as he could from Slon’s hungry eye. As always, the light switch was flicked open from the outside and the door unlocked before the man walked in, this time carrying a bag of chips.

“Feel like talking now?” Slon asked as he dangled the bag between two of his fingers. Once again, he received no answer. “I’ll take it you still don’t want to talk? Okay then. I’ll see you again in three days.”

Kasuka swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth but maintained the silence, stomach growling at the sight of that bag disappearing behind the door along with Slon. Slowly, he stumbled to the bathroom, cupping a trembling hand beneath the faucet and filling his empty stomach with as much as water as he could drink before making his way back to the bed and lying down on his back. The water was starting to taste funny, like metal, and even though he didn’t want to drink any more, he still drank it because the hunger was giving him the sensation of perpetual thirst.

At that point, he was hoping someone would save him even though he would’ve much preferred to find a way to save himself.

***

Being in the same apartment with Izaya was starting to take a toll on Shizuo since the insect couldn’t go an hour without insulting him one way or another. If it wasn’t his intelligence, then it was the way he looked, smelled, or even walked, to the point that Shizuo was seriously considering strangling the man and be done with it.

“Hurry up, Shizu-chan,” Izaya ordered in an irritated voice after swallowing the piece he’d just bit off the apple he was eating. “You’re slower than a snail.”

Shizuo’s brow twitched and he flexed his fingers but said nothing. He did however envision slamming Izaya’s head into the desk as hard as he could and cracking open the fucker’s skull.

“Would you hurry it up already? I don’t have all day,” Izaya complained as his eyes darted between the laptop’s screen and that of his phone.

Even though it hurt, Shizuo still bit his tongue to stop himself from roaring in anger as he sat down in the chair next to Izaya who was typing something on his phone. “What did you want to show me?” Shizuo growled the question, all the while having to remind himself that grabbing Izaya by the nape and crushing the fucker’s face into the desk wouldn’t help him in any way besides giving him a couple of seconds of satisfaction.

Reluctantly, Izaya placed the phone on the desk and focused his attention on what he wanted to show Shizuo. “This is a video someone sent me with all the recordings found of the van before it disappeared. Now watch.”

Shizuo did as he was told and watched the screen intently, his heart aching at the knowledge that his little brother was in that van at the time the footage had been taken. He didn’t think Kasuka would panic easily, but that didn’t make him worry any less since he couldn’t even imagine what kind of a twisted fuck that wasn’t Izaya would kidnap his brother.

“This is all I’ve managed to gather so far regarding your brother’s disappearance. Seeing how well the kidnapper avoided the cameras and then disappeared makes me think that the guy must know the city well. It has to be someone who’s been here for a while,” Izaya concluded right before he took another bite out of the shiny red apple.

Even though Shizuo’s heart was bleeding at the thought of Kasuka being hurt, he still couldn’t take his eyes off of Izaya’s wet lips now that the video was over and the flea kept chewing on the apple. It wasn’t that he suddenly felt the urge to kiss those lips, but he was fucking starving and he wanted to eat what Izaya was eating, especially when the bastard’s expression was telling him that the accursed insect was definitely enjoying that goddam apple.

Izaya only noticed that Shizuo wasn’t paying attention when he asked him a question while still staring at the screen and the dumb protozoan gave no answer. Annoyed, he turned to the man, his expression morphing into one of horror mixed with amusement when he noticed the drool trickling down the left corner of Shizuo’s mouth.

“Eww!” Izaya exclaimed in disgust as he moved away from Shizuo. “You really are a repulsive beast, aren’t you?”

Seeing Izaya’s reaction woke Shizuo up from the mesmerizing image of the delicious apple being eaten. “W-What?” he stuttered, realizing that Izaya had caught him staring.

“You’re drooling!”

“Shizuo raised a hand and whipped his mouth, his face going red in embarrassment. “Shut up!”

“Ahh ha ha ha!”

“I haven’t eaten in over two months, you fucking flea; I’m starving to death,” Shizuo tried to defend himself, but Izaya kept on laughing. “And now I can’t eat because you messed up my teeth.”

It took Izaya a full minute to finally stop laughing. “I’m not sorry that I’m not sorry I broke your tooth,” Izaya declared with a smirk, choosing to swivel in his chair knowing that it pissed Shizuo off just as much as it did Namie. “You deserved it.” He kept on swiveling as Shizuo continued to complain about how hungry he was, until he could no longer stand the whining and stood up. “Alright, I’m going to make you some miso soup. In the meantime, go watch some TV.”

Shizuo’s jaw dropped at Izaya’s words and he kept blinking, finding it hard to believe that he’d finally get some food after nearly starving to death.

“Oi, get up,” Izaya ordered, not liking the idea of Shizuo snooping around on his laptop.

“You think it’s safe to eat now?” Shizuo asked in a low voice, a part of him wondering if he was hallucinating from lack of food.

Izaya nodded and pushed Shizuo’s chair with him in it away from the laptop so that he could sign out. “Weren’t you paying attention to what the dentist was saying?”

“No, I was too busy thinking of ways to murder Shinra,” Shizuo hissed, hands clenching into fists at the mere memory of the pain he had to endure because of a certain sadistic doctor. No matter how much he knew it’d upset Celty, he still planned to at least punch Shinra in the face for doing something like that to him. Sighing in relief now that he’d been promised food, he stood up and made his way to the couch, turning his head and watching Izaya disappear into the kitchen before facing forward. Even as he stared at the screen, the only thing he could think about was that miso soup Izaya was preparing.

“So hungry, so hungry, so hungry,” Shizuo kept murmuring as he shifted on the couch, unable to find a comfortable spot since he wanted nothing more than to get up and raid Izaya’s kitchen now that the bastard said he could eat. He almost felt like a dog waiting for its master to feed it. Perhaps that was exactly what Izaya was hoping for when he chose to take care of him instead of throwing him out after kicking him into unconsciousness. It bothered Shizuo quite a lot, but he wasn’t foolish enough to refuse help, food and shelter from someone even if that someone happened to be the man who had tried to kill him on numerous occasions before.

Time seemed to pass unbelievably slowly while he waited for Izaya to prepare the soup, making the wait that much more unbearable. He remembered not actually watching but trying to watch a documentary about time and relativity but not really paying much attention to it because he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he hated Izaya. Now more than ever, he wished he’d paid attention because he sure as hell wanted to know why it seemed like the seconds passed slower and slower the longer he stared in the direction of the kitchen, the smell alone enough to drive him insane.

After a while, he started wondering if perhaps Izaya was taking his sweet time in order to torture him, but just as he was about to get up and raid the kitchen whether Izaya approved of it or not, the insect stepped into the living room, a satisfied smirk plastered all over that extremely annoying face.

“Dinner is served~” Izaya announced, chuckling as he watched the beast swallow and lick his lips in anticipation.

Even though he had very little energy left, Shizuo still sprang to his feet and practically ran into the kitchen, sat at the table, picked up the spoon, scooped some soup and shoved it into his mouth before Izaya even managed to catch up to him.

“Shit!” Shizuo ended up cursing when the hot liquid went down his throat, but he continued to eat the soup anyway, not in the least deterred by the feeling of his insides getting burned.

“Slow down, brute, or you’re going to drown or something,” Izaya advised, shaking his head in disapproval at the sight of Shizuo raising the bowl and drinking the remainder of the soup.

“Seconds!” Shizuo requested as he raised the bowl. “Please,” he then added, realizing that he was being rude.

Sighing, Izaya refilled the bowl, finally giving up on trying to reason with the starved beast. The second bowl disappeared just as quickly as the first and Izaya wasn’t in the least surprised when the beast asked for yet another refill, practically begging like a dog for more food.

“Eat, Shizu-chan, eat. You need to get your strength back,” Izaya said as he sat down and placed his elbows on the tabletop, but it looked like Shizuo was too busy stuffing his face to even hear what was being said to him. It didn’t matter. After all, you’re going to need your strength if you’re to be of any use to me.

Chapter 74: Shadows Follow

The next three days, Shizuo ate everything that Izaya cooked for him, from miso soup to soft and eventually solid food. Because of that Izaya’s fridge was now empty and the flea had gone out to buy more food. A part of him was feeling bad about making Izaya work so hard on feeding him, but there was just something peaceful about seeing the flea cook that Shizuo couldn’t get enough of. Sure, the pest laughed at him and mocked him about eating like a beast, a brute or even a pig, but there was always a smile on Izaya’s face, even if most of the times it was malicious, and that was something Shizuo enjoyed a lot since a sad or scared Izaya was not something he wanted to see again anytime soon.

Unfortunately, there had been a few times when Shizuo caught Izaya staring into space, wearing a tormented expression of mental anguish, but luckily those moments didn’t last for long since the flea seemed to be pretty good at pretending nothing was wrong by forcing a smile on his face and insulting him again to most likely distract himself from memories of the violence inflicted upon him.

The thing that stood out the most though when it came to Izaya was the flea’s constant need to assert his dominance. The insect would hover around him and then use verbal conflict as an excuse to either wrap thin and usually cold fingers around his nape, fist a hand into his hair or grab him by the arm, all of the above things that Shizuo himself had done to Izaya in the past. Half the time, Shizuo had to fight the temptation to break Izaya’s arm for daring to grab him like that, but the other half he resigned himself to the knowledge that it was what the flea needed and if he could at least give him that, then perhaps it would help Izaya heal a bit.

As for himself, most of the times Shizuo was quite good at locking away the past even though he was seeing and talking to Izaya for so many hours a day, but sometimes he couldn’t help but vividly recall the things he’d done to the flea and in such moments, the self-hatred would increase tenfold and run rampant, leaving him unable to pay attention to what the flea was saying. Izaya would then insult him for not answering and then proceed to completely ignore him for a few hours. It suited Shizuo just fine though, especially when all he could see and hear even as he stared into space was Izaya’s smaller body twisting in agony and the man’s heartwrenching screams.

Living together was certainly not easy, but both of them were obviously doing their best to remain calm even though at times they wanted to kill each other. It was all for the sake of Kasuka and because of that Shizuo was willing to do anything to save his brother, even if it meant doing things for Izaya, whatever that meant.

***

Tanaka Tom could say that the day he found out that Shizuo was alive had been one of the happiest days of his life. Now, twenty or so hours later, he realized that he could no longer wait for Shizuo to contact him so he got on the subway heading for Shinjuku to pay his best friend a visit. He was still surprised that Shizuo’s brother had lied, but what was even more shocking than Hanejima Yuuhei lying on television was that Shizuo was staying at Izaya’s place. He almost couldn’t believe it when he first heard about it from the Black Rider, but Celty Sturluson wasn’t one to mess with people which meant that her words had to be true.

Now more than ever he wanted to see Shizuo. He’d never been to the Informant’s apartment before, but he knew how to get there since he still remembered the address written on the business card he’d given Shizuo that night when his friend seemed desperate to talk to Izaya.

It didn’t take him long to get to Izaya’s apartment, and even though he didn’t feel like seeing the Informant, he still knocked on the door, mind set on seeing his best friend no matter what. To his surprise and joy, the one he saw as the door opened was his friend and not Orihara Izaya.

“Tom-senpai!” Shizuo exclaimed in surprise, his voice full of emotion.

Without a word, Tom stepped forward and gave Shizuo a manly hug, his friend returning the gesture before they both pulled away, smiling. “So you’re alive, huh? That’s good, very good.”

Shizuo nodded, since he couldn’t find his voice, and gestured to his friend to come in.

“What happened?” Tom asked as he sat down on the couch, happy to see that the Informant wasn’t home.

Shizuo sat down as well, smile gone and replaced by a frown since he hated lying to his friend. Telling the man the truth was out of the question. “I’m not even sure myself. I was drugged so I passed out, then I got stabbed, I somehow ended up in a coma and woke up two months later. That’s all I know besides finding out that my brother had been kidnapped.”

“I heard about it on the news. I’m really sorry about that. I want to help but I don’t know how,” Tom told him sincerely. He wasn’t exactly friends with Kasuka, but he still knew the younger Heiwajima since the three of them had ended up hanging out together a few times when Shizuo was still in high school.

“Izaya’s helping me out with this,” Shizuo revealed in a low voice, thinking that Tom would disapprove.

“What? I almost can’t believe that, but then again I have no doubts that if he’s really going to help you find Kasuka, he’s doing it for his own gain,” Tom commented, now frowning as well.

“Yeah, I know,” Shizuo admitted in an unhappy voice. He hated the idea of being Izaya’s lapdog, but if doing shady stuff was the price for getting his little brother back, then he was willing to pay it.

“What did he ask in return for helping you out?”

Shizuo lowered his head. “He said I’m going to have to do stuff for him.”

Tom’s frown deepened as he realized the implications of what his friend was saying. “Do it.”

“What?!” Shizuo exclaimed in surprise, raising his head and blinking as he stared at his senpai in disbelief.

“Orihara Izaya is one of the best when it comes to finding people, so if he’s willing to help you even though you two hate each other, then do it. I doubt he’d ask you to kill someone, so I’m guessing that what he needs from you is not that different from what you did when you worked with me,” Tom concluded. He hated the idea of Orihara Izaya using his best friend for shady stuff, but he trusted Shizuo to know when to stop since his friend was not as stupid as Izaya thought he was.

“Thank you,” Shizuo spoke sincerely, his heart feeling a bit lighter knowing that his friend supported him.

“Anyway, I think I’d better go now before he comes back,” Tom said as he stood up. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you alive.”

“I’m sorry for making you worry."

“It’s not your fault. I really wanted to believe you were alive when I saw a few pictures of you online but I feared it was all a hoax. Luckily, I ran into the Black Rider and she confirmed that you are alive and then told me where I could find you.”

Shizuo smiled, making a mental note to thank Celty for telling his senpai where to find him. The truth was that he’d missed Tom and he was glad to finally see and talk to the man even if the situation was anything but happy because of all the things happening.

“Anyway, I’m off before Izaya comes back,” Tom said, grimacing a bit at the thought of leaving Shizuo alone with Izaya. Truth be told, he was honestly surprised that Shizuo was actually looking better than in those photos circulating online where he resembled a walking corpse. It was almost as though Izaya had actually taken care of his friend. No, no way, not possible, he thought as he shook his head before making his way to the door. “Don’t be a stranger!”

“I won’t,” Shizuo assured him as he watched his friend disappear behind the elevator doors. He wished he could’ve left with his senpai, but he couldn’t; not yet anyway.

***

Izaya was almost done shopping when he decided to take a small break. Sighing, he placed the bags on the bench and sat down as well, for once choosing a more secluded area since he felt that it was a good time to call his therapist since she was most likely taking her lunch break. Frowning a bit, he fished out his phone from his jacket pocket, dialed her number and raised the device to his ear.

“I was wondering if you’d call again.”

“Oh?”

“I was worried that I might’ve pushed you too hard last time.”

“Fujita-san is so kind, worrying about little ol’ me~”

“I worry about all my patients.”

“Ah, yes, of course, but anyway, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine,” Izaya assured her even though he was pouting a little.

“That’s good to hear. Does that mean you’re ready to answer the question I asked last time we talked?”

Izaya couldn’t answer right away, but when he finally did, his voice was rather low. “The answer is both.”

“I see, thank you for answering. Now I know a little bit more. May I ask a new question?”

“You may,” Izaya answered reluctantly and swallowed thickly, fearing what she might ask next.

“Were you and that man in a relationship?”

“NO!” Izaya nearly screeched, the mere idea of being in a relationship with Shizuo making his hair stand on end. “Never!”

“I apologize if the question bothered you, but I needed to know since some of my patients have been hurt by the people they loved.”

“I don’t love Shi―” Izaya started but abruptly stopped, luckily realizing in time the mistake he was about to do. Not only would it have been awkward because her name was Shizuka, but also dangerous since Shizuo was a well known character and he didn’t want to risk her finding out that the person she was talking to was Orihara Izaya. The only reason why he was even saying as much was because the woman had no idea who he was. “We were never together,” he declared in a voice laced with disgust. “We’ve always hated each other.”

“I see. Thank you for answering this question too. Two questions in one day, can you believe it? I call that progress.”

“Progress?” Izaya replied sarcastically.

“It actually is, seeing how it takes some patients months to even get here,” Shizuka revealed in the hope of cheering him up. The better the man felt about himself, the faster he healed, or so she hoped. “And since I won’t be asking any more questions today, we can talk about anything you want.”

“Unfortunately, I have to go, so perhaps next time?”

“Sure. Good bye for now, Nakura-san.”

“Until next time, Fujita-san.”

After pocketing the phone, Izaya stood up, picked up the bags and went to buy more food since the beast was still rather skinny compared to how he used to look before the whole coma thing. It felt weird to care about Shizuo’s health instead of doing his best to put him into the ground, but a walking and talking Shizuo was far more entertaining than a dead one.

As he was thinking about what to cook when he got home, he passed a store and then went back, realizing there was one thing he had forgotten to buy.

“Orihara-kun, I haven’t seen you in a while! How have you been?” the old woman asked, smile widening when the young man smiled back at her.

“I’m good, Maki-san. Thank you for asking. I was out of the city, that’s why I haven’t been to your lovely store in a while,” Izaya told her as he placed the heavy bags on the counter.

“It’s good to have you back. What can I get you?”

“Two cartoons of milk,” Izaya said in a strange tone, sounding much like disbelief now that he was actually buying milk for the beast.

“Did you finally get a cat?” the old woman asked as she took the two cartons of milk out of the fridge and placed them in one of the bags.

Izaya laughed awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head. “It’s more like a dog than anything else.”

“Dogs are wonderful too!” the woman said excitedly. “They’re loyal creatures. Take care of it and it’ll take care of you.”

“It’s a wild thing really,” Izaya mumbled. “I think it’d rather attack me than protect me.”

“I know that people say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, but I believe you can. I have no doubt you’ll succeed in training that dog.”

Chuckling darkly, Izaya picked up the bags. “I sure hope so,” he then said as he turned around and walked out of the store, the image of Shizuo fetching a stick eventually making him burst into hysterical laughter.

***

Shizuo was pacing the living room when he heard the lock turn and he immediately rushed to the door. “Welcome back, flea.”

“Oh, how cute! Was Shizu-chan waiting for me like the good mutt that he is?” Izaya mocked as he passed him by instead of accepting the beast’s help and handing over the bags. Shizuo followed him into the kitchen like a starving pet, licking his lips as Izaya started unpacking the stuff he’d bought. “Nuh uh, you’re not allowed to touch this yet,” Izaya made it clear by smacking Shizuo’s hand away. “You can have the milk though,” he then added as an afterthought as he started placing stuff inside the fridge. By the time he closed the door and turned to look at Shizuo, the idiot had already gulped down the whole thing and was now whipping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Well, that was fast,” Izaya remarked as he sat down on the chair to catch his breath. “You’re much livelier than you were a couple of days ago.”

“Food helped,” Shizuo said as he too took a seat at the opposite side of the table.

“I’m just going to rest for a minute and then I’m going to dye your hair,” Izaya announced as though there was nothing weird about that.

“What?!” Shizuo exclaimed in a high-pitched tone as he instinctively moved farther away from Izaya. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll do it myself.”

“But I want to since Shizu-chan is still so weak.”

“I’m good. I can do it,” Shizuo tried to assure him, but Izaya was having none of it if the threatening expression on the flea’s face was anything to go by.

“I won’t leave you bald, I promise~” Izaya said in a singsong voice as he stood up, picked up the dye box from inside the bag, grabbed Shizuo by the arm and started dragging him towards the bathroom.

At that point, Shizuo knew that he couldn’t win the argument, so he let himself be dragged up the stairs and into the bathroom.

“I have to change, but I’ll be right back.”

Frowning, Shizuo turned to the mirror. His hair had indeed grown too much and it looked weird. He also needed a haircut but he could only hope that Izaya wouldn’t offer to cut his hair since he was already dreading what the flea was going to do with that dye. His eyes drifted over to the box and he picked it up to see if the flea had gotten the right color. It looked close to what he usually bought so he placed it back on the shelf beneath the mirror and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Shit.

“Here, put these on the floor,” Izaya said as he entered the bathroom and handed Shizuo some regular sheets of paper since he didn’t have any newspapers. He then waited until the beast finished before moving the small chair in front of the sink, motioning for Shizuo to sit down.

“Wait, I don’t want to get my T-shirt dirty. Can I take it off?” Shizuo asked for permission, knowing that it might make Izaya uncomfortable.

“It’s fine. Take it off,” Izaya mumbled and went to pick up a towel which he then placed around Shizuo’s shoulders after the man sat down.

“Have you done this before?”

“No.”

Shizuo moved to sit up, but the hand on his shoulder pushed him back down.

“Trust me, ne?” Seeing that Shizuo was no longer trying to get up, Izaya picked up the brush and proceeded to untangle Shizuo’s hair since it helped with applying the dye.

“Have you at least read the instructions?” Shizuo asked, sounding panicky.

“Of course I have; don’t insult me.” Now smirking, Izaya picked up the conditioner included in the box and applied some on Shizuo’s hairline, ears and neck, the coating making it easier to rinse off any dye he might get on the beast’s skin. While a Shizuo with weird colored ears sounded fun, it wasn’t something he could afford to do when he needed Ikebukuro’s monster for more than a few serious jobs. “See? I know what I’m doing,” Izaya bragged as he put on the gloves, dumped the dye in the bowl, mixed it up with a brush and then started applying it on the blonde hair.

Shizuo’s heart, which until then had been close to bursting through his chest because of how worried he was that Izaya might completely ruin his hair, slowed down a bit when it started to look like the flea was serious about it and not just screwing around.

“Now we have to wait thirty minutes for the dye to set in,” Izaya announced once he was done as he placed a shower cap to cover Shizuo’s hair and took off his gloves, looking smug.

“Thanks,” Shizuo spoke softly as he walked out of the bathroom and headed downstairs, hoping to distract himself with anything that was on TV because thinking that his archenemy and the man he’d broken with his own two hands had just dyed his hair was too strange for words. It felt like the more time they spent around each other, the more twisted their interactions got. He kept staring at the screen for a while, not really noticing what was going on around him until he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “W-What?” he stuttered a bit, surprised to notice that Izaya was right in his face, those red eyes looking at him with a mix of annoyance and amusement.

“You were crying about food earlier so I made you a sandwich,” Izaya said as he straightened his back and pointed to the plate on the coffee table.

“Sorry, I was spacing out,” Shizuo told him as he reached for the sandwich. “I was just thinking how weird everything is.”

Izaya sat down next to Shizuo, eyes looking at the TV screen even though he wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening there. “It is, isn’t it?”

Since he was busy chewing on the mouthful of sandwich he’d just bitten off, Shizuo nodded instead of answering.

“But we both know exactly what led to this,” Izaya continued in a surprisingly hollow voice as opposed to the angry tone he normally used whenever he talked about the past. A heavy silence descended upon the both of them, and just as Shizuo was about to speak, Izaya opened his mouth first. “Don’t say it,” he warned.

Shizuo swallowed his apology and took another bite from the sandwich, the delicious thing now tasting like ash. He still ate it though, aware that he needed the energy to get his strength back as soon as possible.

They spent the next twenty minutes in silence, until the alarm on Izaya’s phone went off, letting them know that it was time to rinse the hair.

“I’ll do this part myself,” Shizuo said as he stood up.

“Yeah, do that,” Izaya agreed, pretending to be interested in what was happening on the screen. The truth was that the bickering and everything else was fine as long as they didn’t seriously discuss the past since such a thing always made his mood plummet and the simple act of looking at Shizuo was too much when all he could see was the vicious beast from that night.

Since the pain and hatred seemed to be rolling off of Izaya in waves, Shizuo hurried up the stairs and entered the bathroom, immediately removing the shower cap and proceeding to rinse away the dye while trying to think of something to say that would bring Izaya back to the present since the man seemed to have once again fallen prey to memories of the past. He mindlessly continued to rinse his hair, only realizing that something was wrong when the water started to run clear and yet his hair appeared to be anything but blonde. In fact, it looked suspiciously close to his natural dark brown color. Fuck.

“IIIIZAAAAYAAAAAA!” Shizuo roared and dashed out of the bathroom, the flea jumping to his feet and running behind the desk before Shizuo even reached the ground floor. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” Shizuo shouted in anger as he grabbed a few locks of dark brown hair. “I knew you were up to no good, you fucking bastard!”

“You stand out way too much because of your blonde hair,” Izaya explained, tensing the moment Shizuo grabbed the edge of the desk. He didn’t put it past the brute to flip or push the damn thing out the window.

“Fuck you! I liked my blonde hair!” Shizuo growled, hands trembling violently with the need to wrap around Izaya’s thin neck and squeeze the life out of the pest once and for all.

“This will allow you to move around inconspicuously, which is always a good thing,” Izaya tried to explain, but it didn’t look like Shizuo cared since the beast jumped over the desk and tried to grab him. Izaya managed to escape in time but he ended up regretting having angered Shizuo when the beast started chasing him around the apartment, roaring insults and promises of pain to come. Truth was that he hadn’t expected Shizuo to get this angry.

And then it happened, so suddenly that Izaya could hardly believe it. Fear washed over him like a giant wave hitting a shore, that one moment of losing his balance enough for Shizuo to run into him and send the both of them crashing down on the floor.

“I’ve got you now, bastard,” Shizuo hissed as he wrapped one hand around Izaya’s nape and used the other to twist the bastard’s arm behind his back, not yet realizing that Izaya was trembling beneath his hands. “Maybe I should dye your hair blonde to see how you’d like that.” When he got no answer, he shook Izaya a bit. “Oi, flea, did you hear me?” This time however he felt the violent shudder going through the smaller man’s frame and something clicked in his mind, his expression morphing into one of pure horror when he realized that he was pinning Izaya down not much differently than how he’d done it that night. He immediately pulled back his hands as though he’d been burned, his vision nearly wavering when he caught sight of Izaya’s face and realized that the man was most likely having a panic attack.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Shizuo uttered in a soft remorseful voice as he moved away from Izaya, figuring that he needed to give the man some space. To his surprise, Izaya stood up soon after, not saying a word even as he headed out the door. Despite telling himself that he shouldn’t follow Izaya because it wasn’t right, he still did it anyway, worried that the man might pass out since he looked as white as a ghost. To his horror, Izaya went up the stairs towards the rooftop, the idea that the flea might jump taking root in his mind and staying there.

Once he reached the top stairs Izaya stepped onto the roof, not hearing Shizuo’s footsteps with how hard his teeth were chattering. He doubted he could keep his balance so he didn’t approach the edge, choosing to stop halfway there. He then pulled out his phone, dialed a number and raised it to his ear.

“I must say I’m surprised to get a second call from you today.”

Izaya opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

“Nakura-san?”

“…”

“Nakura-san, what’s wrong?”

“…”

“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help you.”

“…”

“It’s okay, you can get through this,” Shizuka then said, the heavy breathing a clue that her patient was having a panic attack. "Concentrate on your breathing. Stay in the present.”

Izaya tried to do that, but it wasn’t working as long as he could still feel Shizuo’s hands on him. Realizing that he’d made a mistake in calling her, he ended the call and lowered himself to a crouching position, not knowing that Shizuo was watching him to make sure he stayed safe.

Chapter 75: Traces of Damage

The next two days were not easy. Izaya was acting cold toward him, colder than ever before, and the atmosphere was so chilly that Shizuo found himself shivering or wincing more than once whenever Izaya would use too much force to close a door, a drawer or type on the keyboard. The man still served him food, but it tasted bland compared to the previous times and Shizuo could do nothing but eat it anyway knowing that refusing would further infuriate Izaya. He felt horrible, having lost his temper like that over something as silly as his hair being dyed the wrong color, especially when the more he thought about it, the more sense Izaya’s words made seeing how blending in would be more to his advantage when enemies, the press and who knew who else was after him.

Though Shizuo was getting better at controlling his temper, there had still moments when the anger was too strong to reign in and he would fall prey to it. After so many years of trying his hardest to catch the flea, it felt weird not to run after him whenever the bastard pissed him off. His only consolation was that the impulse he got that night to fuck Izaya hadn’t returned since then. If it had, Shizuo wouldn’t have dared to go anywhere near Izaya, especially after promising the man to never hurt him that way again. Shizuo had to admit that Izaya was a brave soul for allowing him to stay there.

Strangely enough, even though Izaya was normally a light sleeper, he seemed to have fallen asleep with his head resting on the desk while Shizuo was watching TV and now the man wasn’t even hearing the sound of the phone ringing. At first, Shizuo ignored it, but when it rang again five minutes later and the flea was still not waking up, he got up and made his way to the desk where he called out to Izaya, but not before making sure he was at a safe enough distance as to not startle him again. “Oi, flea, wake up! Your phone is ringing.”

Whether it was his voice or the proximity, Shizuo did not know, but Izaya finally woke up, groaning and slowly pushing himself off the desk. To his horror, Shizuo ended up seeing something he didn’t really think he’d ever see when it came to the flea as Izaya turned to him, looking sleepy, annoyed and confused all into one. Their eyes only met for a brief second before Shizuo turned the other way, face going red in embarrassment because of what he’d just seen. “Your ph-phone was ringing,” he stuttered as he rushed back to the couch and sat down, now worried that the flea might freak out because of what had just happened.

It didn’t take Izaya long to figure out why Shizuo was acting so strange, not with how uncomfortable it felt to have his hard-on constricted by the material of his pants. Horrified, he pretty much ran up the stairs and into the bathroom, closing the door and then locking it while his heart beat wildly inside his chest. The thought that the beast could do anything to him and he wouldn’t be able to stop him was only making things worse, so he took a few deep breaths, hoping to calm down.

Downstairs, Shizuo started pacing the living room, a dark expression on his face. It didn’t take a genius to guess what Izaya had to be thinking that very moment and it somehow made him feel like shit because he had no intention of going after him. He would much rather die than see that expression on Izaya’s face again. Thinking that it might be better to give Izaya some space, he picked up the cigarette pack and the lighter and made sure to slam the door hard enough for the flea to hear from inside the bathroom.

As the sound reached his ears, Izaya sighed in relief but didn’t go out just yet even though his erection had flagged soon after entering the bathroom. The past few days had been really hard on him and the truth was that he was quite scared of Shizuo at times after being reminded just how easy it was to make him angry. At least Shizuo had been considerate enough to go out for a while to give him some time alone so Izaya opened the door a few minutes later and went downstairs where he sat down in his chair and turned to the view outside the window.

Shizuo spent about half an hour on the rooftop, wanting to give Izaya some time to calm down. When he finally came back he found the flea at the desk, typing away at the laptop and pretending he hadn’t heard him come in. “Izaya, we need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Izaya stated calmly without even looking at him.

“Yes there is, like the fact that you thought I might snap and rape you again after seeing your hard-on.”

This time Izaya’s head snapped in Shizuo’s direction, surprised that the beast hadn’t stuttered at all while saying all of that. “Well, I’m sorry that anything sex-related makes me really uncomfortable, especially when you’re around,” Izaya replied sarcastically, realizing too late that he’d made the mistake of telling the beast just how damaged he was because of what happened.

“I’m not surprised. I was really violent that night, but you need to understand something.”

“I don’t want to talk about that night,” Izaya hissed the words and his eyes narrowed into slits as he glared at the dumb beast for a few moments before his eyes settled on the laptop's screen again.

“I know, but there are still some things you need to hear,” Shizuo insisted as he placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward a bit. “What happened that night was more of a power thing. I mostly did it because I wanted to hurt you and not because I loved you and wanted to have sex with you or some shit like that. I know that I’m a monster for getting off on your pain, but that’s what happened.” The truth was a little more complicated than that, but it didn’t matter. All he cared about was reassuring Izaya that he wouldn’t go after him again.

“What I’m trying to say is that I never want to hurt you again and that what happened wasn’t your fault. I’m not stupid enough to think you’d want it just because you got a hard-on while sleeping, especially when we’re both guys and we know how those damn things have a mind of their own.”

Izaya had stopped typing and was instead just staring at the screen while his brain was trying to process the beast’s words. He was feeling sick about being reminded that Shizuo had gotten off on his pain but at the same time he felt some relief knowing that the man who had made him cry was not interested in having sex with him again.

“Izaya, please look at me.”

Izaya swallowed the lump in his throat and raised his head slowly, red eyes now staring into mocha ones.

“I’d rather die than hurt you that way again.”

Izaya didn’t know what to say to that, but luckily the phone rang and he picked it up, at the same time remembering that the reason Shizuo had woken him up in the first place was because someone had called earlier.

“What you got?”

“I found the van. You have until midnight before I let my colleagues know.”

“Where is it?”

"I’ll text you the address in a second.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Izaya told the man before ending the call and standing up. “Shizu-chan, get ready to leave.”

“Huh?”

“Someone found the van used in your brother’s kidnapping. We have to go soon if you want to see it before the police shows up.”

“I’ll be right back,” Shizuo said as he rushed up the stairs and into the bedroom, changing at the speed of light and then hurrying downstairs. “Let’s go.”

“We’ll leave in about fifteen minutes or so. Shiki-san is sending us a car.”

“The Yakuza guy,” Shizuo mumbled unhappily since he wasn’t particularly fond of the Yakuza and he didn’t want to be in their debt.

“Yes, the Yakuza guy,” Izaya repeated in an annoyed voice as he picked up the keys and moved to get the coat. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he then added with a sneer, effectively silencing any future complaints.

They waited in silence, Shizuo pacing the living room and Izaya sitting in his chair until the phone finally rang and Izaya was told the car had arrived. “Let’s go,” he told the idiot who looked like he was really close to losing his patience.

After locking the door and following Shizuo inside the elevator even though he felt uncomfortable at being stuck with the beast in such a small space even for a second, they finally walked out of the building and found that two cars were waiting for them instead of one. “Shiki-san…” Izaya uttered in surprise while Shizuo couldn’t help but glower at the high-ranking Yakuza. As though having Shiki there wasn’t already bad enough, Aozaki and Akabayashi were present as well.

“I see that you’re still in one piece, Informant-san,” Shiki said before his eyes left Izaya and they settled on the famous Ikebukuro’s beast. “I must say I’m surprised.”

Shizuo frowned but said nothing, figuring that it was best to let Izaya do the talking.

“Anyway,” Shiki continued as he turned his attention to Izaya, “shall we go?”

“We…?” Izaya asked with a hint of worry in his voice.

“Yes,” Shiki answered as he dropped the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under the sole of his shoe. “Now, could you please go with Aozaki and Akabayashi? There are a few things I’d like to talk to Heiwajima Shizuo in private.”

Izaya reluctantly made his way to the car, not really looking forward to spending any time in the company of the Blue and Red Demons. Aozaki especially was making him nervous because he couldn’t get out of his head this crazy idea that the man could see the weakness in him ever since that time the Awakusu-kai had paid him a visit and his healing rib ended up getting broken again.

It looked like the two Yakuza executives were doing their best to make him even more uncomfortable since Akabayashi took a seat in the front with the driver while Izaya was forced to stay in the back with Aozaki. He almost wished he would’ve been allowed to go with Shiki and Shizuo even if he needed some time away from the idiotic brute, but Shiki wanted to talk to Shizuo alone and Izaya couldn’t deny him that after disappearing for two months and leaving the man without his main Informant. His own discomfort aside, he could only hope that Shizuo would not snap. He didn’t think it’d end up well; not for Shiki, but for Shizuo since the Awakusu-kai Executive was no pushover.

Inside the other car, Shizuo remained silent. He didn’t want the Yakuza helping out, but like Izaya had said, “beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Heiwajima Shizuo,” Shiki addressed him in a confident tone, as though he wasn’t talking to someone who could easily break him in half. “Since we’ll be working together, I thought it’d be a good idea to get to know each other a bit.”

Shizuo’s head snapped in Shiki’s direction and he stared at the man in disbelief, hoping that he’d heard him wrong. “What…?”

“Didn’t informant-san tell you?”

“He didn’t specify what I was going to have to do exactly,” Shizuo answered with a frown now that he knew for certain that Izaya would make him work for the Yakuza. He was willing to fight if that was the price he had to pay for getting Kasuka back, but he knew he’d have to make it clear that there were some things he wouldn’t do no matter what. “I’m not going to kill anyone and I’m not going to hurt innocent people.”

“We wouldn’t ask you to,” Shiki assured him.

***

They arrived outside Gifu at the place where the van had been abandoned sometime during the evening, and since Izaya couldn’t wait to get out of the car after being stuck with Aozaki and Akabayashi for far too long, he pretty much ran out as soon as it stopped, making the two Yakuza chuckle darkly.

“They talk too much,” Izaya defended himself when Shiki gave him an amused look.

Shiki’s eyes drifted over to his men who were still inside the car, waiting for him, and then back to Izaya. “I’m going to go see the Gifu Yakuza head, but I’m leaving a car and one of my men to take you back to Tokyo.”

“How kind of you, Shiki-san~”

Shizuo, who had heard the conversation, approached Izaya. “Why’s he going there?” he asked as one of the cars drove away.

Izaya shrugged. “I don’t know. He might want to talk business or to ask for a favor. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Shiki-san over the years, is that it’s best not to ask him too many questions.”

“It’s weird to hear that from you, seeing how you’re an Informant and all that,” Shizuo commented as he took the flashlight being handed to him by the driver Shiki left behind.

Snickering, Izaya took a flashlight as well and they both made their way to the abandoned van after talking to the police officer who’d called him earlier that day and who had gone back to his car to give them some privacy after warning them not to touch anything. Izaya had expected the brute to tear the van apart, so he couldn’t have been more surprised when Shizuo stopped at quite a distance away from it. “What’s wrong, Shizu-chan?”

“I’m afraid of what I might find inside,” Shizuo confessed in a trembling voice.

Izaya carefully approached the van and peeked inside. “There’s no corpse if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Reluctantly, Shizuo closed the distance until he was standing right beside the opened side door. The simple knowledge that his precious little brother had been inside there was enough to make his heart ache, ache which only increased in intensity when he saw the dry blood. There wasn’t enough to indicate that Kasuka had been gravely injured, but the sight still squeezed his heart in a vice grip.

“It looks like the kidnapper didn’t leave any visible traces behind,” Izaya remarked with a frown, “but if we’re lucky, the police might find a fingerprint or a strand of hair.”

Shizuo didn’t answer. Instead, he just stood there, eyes fixed on the dry blood as he wondered if Kasuka was still alive or if he was being hurt that very moment.

***

It was the eleventh day and Kasuka couldn’t even remember what food tasted like. That would’ve been okay, if not for the extremely dry mouth and the disgusting taste he was constantly feeling. As if that wasn’t already bad enough, he barely had the energy to move and it was quite scary how much skinnier he was after his body had been feeding on his muscles for more than a week now. He couldn’t deny that he preferred hunger over getting repeatedly raped this whole time, but now more than ever he knew that he couldn’t escape when the simple act of standing up was enough to make him dizzy.

“Did you hear me?” Slon asked with a frown as he tightened his hold around Kasuka’s jaw when he realized that his prisoner was not really paying attention.

“What?” Kasuka asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Will you tell me what I want to know?” Slon growled the question, sick and tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.

“No.”

Having reached the end of his patience, Slon pulled back his hand and punched Kasuka, hard enough to draw blood.

Kasuka hissed in pain when the back of his head hit the wall. He licked his split bloody lip and groaned in pain as he made himself smaller, very much aware that he stood no chance at fighting back.

“Speak,” Slon growled the order as he grabbed Kasuka by the arm and pulled him away from the corner.

Kasuka shook his head and tried to pry the Russian’s fingers away from his arm, but the man backhanded him and then pulled him up to his feet.

“You look even more like a woman now,” Slon remarked as he pushed Kasuka against the wall and kept him there, eyes roaming over the now much skinnier face and torso. “I wonder how long your hair will grow by the time you finally decide to tell me everything.”

The disturbing look in Slon’s eye made Kasuka shudder in both disgust and fear since he had no doubts about what the man wanted from him besides information on Izaya. The Russian’s hand then wandered to his hip and Kasuka wanted to just push the man away but he couldn’t because his own arms had been trapped above his head by Slon’s much larger hand wrapped around both his wrists.

“Maybe you’ll tell me next time,” Slon whispered in his prisoner’s ear before pulling away and walking out of the room.

The moment the door closed, Kasuka slid down the wall, trembling.

***

After looking around the place to see if they could find anything that the kidnapper might’ve left behind, and after finding nothing, Shizuo and Izaya got into the car and they were taken back to Tokyo.

“That was disappointing,” Izaya said as he stared out the window at the other cars driving by and the people going about their lives, “but at least now we have an idea where he might be.”

“You should’ve let me stay there so that I could look for him,” Shizuo muttered angrily after turning around a bit so that he could glare at Izaya who was sitting alone in the back seat.

Izaya ignored the angry stare and instead continued to look out the window. “It would’ve been pointless. I said I’ll find him and I will, so let me worry about that. You just take care of your end of the deal.”

“And what might that be? Working for the Yakuza? You offered my services without even consulting me first!”

“Shut up,” Izaya hissed as he made a gesture toward the driver to remind Shizuo they were not alone.

Realizing that he’d made a mistake talking in front of the driver, he swallowed the insult threatening to come out and spent the rest of the way in silence until the car finally stopped and they both got out. Surprisingly enough, they weren’t in front of the building where Izaya lived. “What’re we doing here?”

Without answering, Izaya made his way inside, an irritated Shizuo following behind him.

“Oi, flea, stop ignoring me and answer the question already,” Shizuo demanded as they got out of the elevator. They were still in Shinjuku and the apartment Izaya had just walked into was also at the top floor but he couldn’t understand what they were doing there and whose place it was.

“This is where you’re going to be living for a while,” Izaya finally answered. He then turned on the lights and went inside, opening the doors to show the beast just how much space there was. “As you can see, there’s a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom.”

Shizuo had frozen near the door, trying to understand what Izaya was saying. “What? How? Why?”

“It’s my apartment,” Izaya clarified as he opened the window to let in some air. “It’s safer here in Shinjuku than at your place in Ikebukuro.”

“Is it because of what happened today?” Shizuo asked in a low voice, suddenly feeling like a bad dog which had angered its master and was now being abandoned.

As he turned to Shizuo, Izaya put on a smile. “It’s because Shizu-chan is feeling better now. Anyway, I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Izaya chirped as he placed the keys on the coffee table and made his way to the door.

Shizuo watched him leave and blamed himself for having scared Izaya again.

***

For the first time in days, Izaya felt safe again as he sat down in his desk chair and breathed in relief. The truth was that Shizuo’s presence there had made him uncomfortable from day one and after the conflict they had which resulted in physical violence, he no longer felt safe around the beast. It wasn’t that he necessarily thought Shizuo would assault him again, but more because he wanted to sleep in peace without having to worry that the man who had raped him was living in his house and that Shizuo might snap and break one of his bones or worse. He was just thinking that he was too tired to change the sheets and that he might end up sleeping on the couch again when the phone rang and he answered it.

“My driver said you two got to Tokyo safely.”

“Of course we did~ Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because he’s Heiwajima Shizuo and you’re Orihara Izaya. I’m surprised that you two haven’t killed each other yet,” Shiki admitted in an amused tone.

Izaya sighed softly. “You’re not the only one.”

“Anyway, I called to let you know that the Go rudendoragon group from Gifu agreed to look into Hanejima Yuuhei’s disappearance as well since it seems that many of the members are fans. They were surprised to find out that the abandoned car had been found right outside of their territory.”

Surprised at the news, for the first time in a long time, Izaya didn’t know what to say. Finally he settled on something simple. “Thank you, Shiki-san.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Informant-san.”

Smiling, Izaya lowered the phone and placed it on the desk. It was nice to get help once in a while without having to ask for it, but he didn’t get time to enjoy it because the doorbell rang and he stomped in the direction of the door, thinking that the idiotic brute had ran away from there and came to his apartment to beg for food or something. When he opened it and saw who was there, he wished it had been Shizuo.

“I need to speak to Shizuo-san,” Ruri announced as she patted Yuigadokusonmaru’s head.

“He’s not here right now,” Izaya told her, eyes fixed on the cat.

“Where may I find him?”

Smirking, Izaya’s eyes moved from the cat to her face. “What do you need him for?”

“That’s between me and Shizuo-san.”

Izaya shrugged. “If you don’t tell me what you need, I can’t tell you where he is.”

“I need him to take care of Yuigadokusonmaru for a few days,” Ruri finally answered, knowing that Orihara Izaya was a bastard who wouldn’t tell her a thing unless he found out what he wanted to know.

“I’ll take the cat to him tomorrow,” Izaya said in a sweet voice as he extended his arms. “You can leave it here with me.”

Ruri took a step backwards, for a fraction of a second thinking that he might hurt Kasuka’s cat, but when the man did nothing else and continued to wait with his arms outstretched, she realized that she might’ve jumped to conclusions. “I’d prefer to take Yuigadokusonmaru to Shizuo-san myself.”

“I won’t hurt him,” Izaya promised. “I’m not that cruel,” he then added in a serious tone. “Besides, I have some fatty tuna in the fridge that I know he’ll love.”

Truth was that the private detective Ruri had hired was waiting for her downstairs and she couldn’t waste any more time, so even though she didn’t trust Izaya, she still handed him Yuigadokusonmaru. “If something happens to him, I’ll rip your still beating heart out of your chest,” she promised.

Chuckling, Izaya pulled Yuigadokusonmaru to his chest, the one that still had the beating heart Ruri promised to rip out, and placed a hand on top of the cat’s head. “Yes, of course, I have no doubt you would. Bye~” he then added as he closed the door, locked it and made his way to the couch.

“Do you want to eat now or are you full?”

Yuigadokusonmaru meowed as he curled into a tight ball on his lap.

Izaya picked up the remote control with the hand that he wasn’t using to pat the cat and pressed the on button. “Alright then~ You sleep while I watch some TV.”

“Meow!”

Chapter 76: Trapped Under Ice

The first thing Izaya did after waking up the next morning was to go out and buy a litter box for Yuigadokusonmaru. “There you go,” Izaya told the cat as he moved away from the box. “You’re all set now. How about some food~?” he then continued in a singsong voice as he dangled a bag of cat food between his fingers. “I was going to give you some of my food but then I realized that might not be such a good idea. After all, you’re a cat, aren't you, Yu...doku... eh... what was your name again? Hmm... I think I’ll call you Doku-chan. How’s that? Do you like it?”

The cat meowed in response and rubbed its head against Izaya’s right leg. “So cute! Cats are so much better than dogs~” Izaya sang happily as he bounced in the direction of the bowl he had filled with cat food. He then watched Yuigadokusonmaru eat, once in a while chuckling as memories of Shizuo stuffing his face came back to him. “It’s like I have two pets.”

Once the cat was done eating he picked it up and made his way to the desk where he sat in his chair, petting it while contemplating whether or not he should call his therapist. "What do you think, Doku-chan? Should I call Shizu-chan?"

The cat purred and curled into a tighter ball.

"You're right. I should," he decided. "I'm going to call her." Izaya was a bit nervous because of what happened the last time he'd talked to her but he had no doubts that Fujita Shizuka knew exactly why he hadn't answered at the time. After all, she was a smart woman. Picking up the phone, he looked for her number in the contacts list and then called her once he found it. "Good morning, Fujita-san."

Shizuka was actually feeling relieved to get the call since this man who called himself Nakura appeared to be one of those patients who gave up on therapy after a few sessions. "It's good to hear from you again, Nakura-san."

Izaya chuckled at her words. "That's not something I hear very often."

"Really? That's a shame," she feigned surprise. "I'm sure Nakura-san is very good company." It wasn't that she thought he was necessarily bad, but she could tell that he kept people at a distance, most likely to avoid getting hurt.

"I really am not, but that's beside the point. Anyway, about the last time I called..."

"You were having a panic attack."

As much as it shamed him to admit, Izaya chose to speak the truth since lying wouldn't help him get better. "Yes."

"I assume there was a trigger."

"Mhm…"

"I know that Nakura-san is not yet ready to talk so I won't ask about what happened, but what I can do is suggest that you avoid things, people and situations which might trigger panic attacks, at least until you think you're ready to face them."

"Yesterday I got rid of the biggest potential trigger," Izaya told her, laughing a bit as he remembered Shizuo's crushed expression when he left him alone in that apartment. "But I have no plans of running away anymore. I am talking to you, aren't I?"

"Yes, and that's the very first step towards healing. Unfortunately, too few take it."

Thinking about it, Izaya could understand why. "Can you blame them?"

"Not really," Shizuka admitted.

"That's what I thought."

"Hmm..."

"Yes?"

"May I ask a question?"

"Is it about that night?"

"Yes, but I'm not going to ask about the attack."

Izaya picked up Yuigadokusonmaru from his lap and held him tightly to his chest. "Ask your question."

"What can you tell me about that night? Anything will do, even if it happened hours before the attack."

"It was a cold rainy day," Izaya started, fingers curling tighter around the phone, "but I went out anyway. Big mistake, since I ended up running into a monster." After taking a deep breath, he continued. "He never caught me before..."

"It's okay to stop now," Shizuka eventually said when it looked like her patient couldn't continue.

"My rib was broken so I couldn't breathe very well. He s-stabbed me," Izaya revealed in a quivering voice, "and burned me with a cigarette."

To Shizuka it sounded like the beginning of torture.

"And then..." Here Izaya stopped, unsure about whether or not he should continue. Even if Shizuka didn't know who he was, it was still hard to tell her what happened. Still, there was one more thing he could tell her. "He broke my wrist."

"I'm sorry to hear that. No one deserves to suffer like that."

Izaya let out a bitter chuckle. "I wouldn't exactly say I didn't deserve those things, but what I didn't deserve was... no, nevermind. Until next time, Fujita-san," Izaya then said and ended the call. He wasn't yet ready to talk about that, not yet anyway.

***

It was around lunch time and Shizuo was blankly staring at the TV, not really paying attention to what was being aired. All it took was less than one day to make him realize something: it was bad with Izaya, but it was worse without him. He'd gotten used to the flea's company and now it felt lonely and cold to be thrown away as though he was nothing more than an unwanted pet. "Goddam flea," he muttered as he raised his legs and wrapped his arms around them. His stomach growled and he made a sound of annoyance, inwardly cursing the insect for leaving him there with no money, no food and no phone.

He was also upset because of other things, like how the clothes he was able to find inside the apartment were a bit too small for him and thus kind of uncomfortable. As for the timing, it couldn't have been worse. There he was, thinking about what horrors his brother might be going through and Izaya wasn't there to distract him from his own dark thoughts. He hadn't even been able to sleep at all, not after seeing the dry blood which clearly indicated that his brother had been hurt.

A few moments later he heard the door opening and he jumped to his feet, thankful that Izaya was there to keep him company if only for a little bit.

"Hello there, mutt," Izaya greeted him with a smile as he pushed the door with his leg.

Shizuo extended his hand to grab one of the bags Izaya was carrying. "Here, let me help."

"Left one, since it's the one with your clothes," Izaya indicated as he raised his left arm and handed Shizuo the bag, glad to finally get rid of the burden.

Shizuo took it and then carried it to the bedroom where he changed into his own clothes before making his way to kitchen where Izaya was waiting for him.

"I figured you were starving so I brought you some food," Izaya announced and proceeded to take out the plastic boxes from inside the bag. "Miso soup, rice, grilled fish and pickles; I hope that's enough for now."

Shizuo swallowed the saliva pooling inside his mouth as his eyes roamed over the nicely packed plastic boxes which contained the food Izaya had prepared for him. "Can I?" he asked in a low voice, unsure whether or not he was permitted to eat or if he had to wait.

"Dig in," Izaya replied with an indifferent expression and a shrug, though on the inside he was laughing at how desperate and pathetic the beast was. The two of them had lived in the same apartment for a little while and yet it looked like the beast had been tamed quite well if it needed to be given permission to eat. "It's kind of cold in here," Izaya remarked with a frown and got up to turn the heat on.

"So good!" Shizuo exclaimed, surprised that Izaya had made him delicious food again. He was certain that it'd taste bland like the last few times, but it didn't and he couldn't have been more grateful to the flea for being so nice to him even though he didn't deserve it after chasing him around the apartment and triggering a panic attack.

"This apartment's got heat, you know?" Izaya announced as he walked into the kitchen and sat down on the kitchen stool.

"Yeah," Shizuo answered with a mouthful of rice, not even raising his head to look at Izaya, "but it's not my apartment."

"Aww, good mutt," Izaya cooed and raised a hand to pat Shizuo on the head, smile morphing into a smirk when he saw that Shizuo wasn't complaining about the demeaning treatment and instead taking it as something completely natural. Still smirking, he pulled back his hand and placed both elbows on the tabletop. "I appreciate your consideration, but a frozen mutt is of no use to me so heat up the apartment whenever you want. You'll be paying for it anyway."

Frowning, Shizuo lowered the chopsticks and raised his head to look Izaya straight in the eyes. "I don't have any money."

"The Awakusu-kai will pay you for your work, so you will have money to pay for the heat, the food and whatever else you may need," Izaya assured him. "You know how the Yakuza are, they take care of their people, and you, Shizu-chan, are one of them now. Oh, and by the way, Shiki-san talked to the Gifu Yakuza head, so if your brother is anywhere inside that city, the Gorudendoragon will find him."

The malicious smirk on Izaya's face reminded Shizuo just how evil the flea could be at times, and even though he absolutely hated the idea of working for the Yakuza, he had no choice since he doubted the police would find anything while the Awakuzu-kai and the Gorudendoragon had connections on the streets and knew better what went on in their cities.

"Oh, here," Izaya chirped as he handed Shizuo a phone. "It's got Shiki-san's number on it, so if he calls, you answer. Got it?"

Shizuo nodded, thanked him and took the phone, grateful to Izaya for the small black device which reminded him so much of the insect's phone. He didn't even need to inspect it before he shoved it into the pocket of his pants, certain that it already had the flea's phone number in it. "Can you tell me what I might have to do for the Awakusu-kai?"

"Nothing much, besides beating up some people. It's what you do, isn't it?" Izaya reminded him.

After swallowing the piece of grilled fish he'd just chewed on, Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but who?"

"Rival groups obviously. The biggest treat at the moment is a group called The Blood Hounds."

Shizuo tilted his head to the side. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Because the leader is Sakamoto's uncle."

"I can't believe I forgot about that," Shizuo commented in a disbelieving tone. "It's just that he never talks about his family and a lot of time has passed since that incident. Now that I think about it, wasn't that the first time we fought together?"

"Sakamoto is not a very good fighter," Izaya recalled with a chuckle. "If it wasn't for Dotachin and the two of us, our dear doctor would've ended up in the hospital with most of his bones broken."

"Wasn't it then when he decided to become a doctor?" Shizuo asked as he shoved more food into his mouth.

Izaya nodded. "He felt bad that we got hurt because of his family. He said that one day he'll become a doctor so that the next time we get injured, he can patch us up himself."

"Yeah! I can't believe I forgot how that side of Sakamoto's family is just a bunch of criminals."

"That's because he doesn't see them as family anymore. In fact, he's ashamed to be related to them," Izaya mused.

"I can't really blame him," Shizuo said as he put down the chopsticks before turning to Izaya. "Thanks for the food, flea."

The malicious smile appeared once again on Izaya's face at the sight of such a tamed beast. "You've very welcome, Shizu-chan," he said in a cheerful voice, still surprised that Ikebukuro's beast was so much easier to tame than he'd originally thought.

***

Slon hissed and pocketed the phone for what felt like the millionth time since he arrived there. If it wasn't Vorona looking for him, then it was some random person wanting to hire him to kill an enemy or spouse, or the Yakuza asking him to take out the competition. Normally, that wouldn't have been much of a problem, but he couldn't do any of that when all he could think about was how much he wanted Hanejima Yuuhei but couldn't have him, and how much he hated Orihara Izaya for knowing exactly how to manipulate him into getting interested in the actor.

He wanted nothing more than to march into that room and fuck Hanejima Yuuhei, but that was exactly what Izaya wanted, even though the Informant had stopped him in the past from going through with it, and Slon didn't want to do anything that he might end up regretting before knowing all the facts. Someone like Orihara Izaya wouldn't spend weeks whispering messed up things into his ear unless he had a very good reason to do so or something to gain from it, and Slon wanted to know the truth since the whole thing was driving him crazy. The Informant had turned his life upside down and he was going to make him pay even if it was the last thing he did.

There was no one to stop him from going in there and torturing the actor until he found out what he wanted to know, but Hanejima Yuuhei seemed like the type of person who'd rather die than betray someone and Slon didn't want to start pulling out nails and cutting off the fingers of someone who most likely didn't deserve any of it. Not only that but it felt wrong to damage Hanejima Yuuhei, one of the most talented actors in Japan, hence the idea of letting him starve. Hunger had a way of making some people talk, but unfortunately it didn't look like the method was being successful in Yuuhei's case. Twelve days had passed since he had stopped giving him food and yet the man was still stoically enduring it.

He could of course fuck him until he talked since rape too was quite the successful torture method, in most cases anyway, but doing such a thing conflicted with his unwillingness to do Izaya's bidding regardless of how much he wanted to find out the truth. It wasn't that alone though. While he might've attempted to do so in the past, it felt wrong now, especially after reflecting upon the events that had led to him pushing the actor face down into the ground and trying to rape him.

***

At first, Kasuka thought that he was freezing so badly because he was naked and because he didn't have a blanket to cover himself, but after a few days of starving he realized that the reason why he was constantly feeling as though ice was sloshing through his veins was because his body had no energy to heat up since its reserves were being used to keep him alive. His fingers were terrifyingly bony because of the weight loss and he had to admit that it scared him to look at his purplish nails. He was literally freezing to death because his body couldn't keep itself warm.

Kasuka didn't want to die without holding Ruri in his arms and seeing his family one last time, but he knew that even if he told Slon everything, the man would still kill him, but not before satisfying the lust Kasuka could sense every time the Russian walked in. It made his skin crawl with disgust and left him feeling utter hopelessness knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop the man when it finally happened. Telling himself that it wouldn't be as bad didn't work either, not when every time he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps he couldn't help but tremble just a little bit harder, as he was doing that very moment as the door opened and the man walked in.

"How about some Pocky?" Slon asked as he sat down on the bed and placed the box on the mattress in front of the trembling tight ball that was Hanejima Yuuhei. When the actor didn't make any move to pick it up, Slon sighed loudly and ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, you're going to starve to death if you don't eat soon. Are you really okay with that?"

As much as he wanted to extend a hand and pick it up, he had a feeling that Slon would stop him if he attempted to do so and then beat him up for thinking that he could eat without giving him any sort of information in return, so he didn't.

"Why are you protecting Izaya after what he tried doing to you?" Slon hissed the question, anger quickly starting to overcome his senses as it did every time he was denied the information he sorely needed to exact his revenge on the man who had messed up his head and then left him for dead. "Just tell me what I want to know, and this," he said as he made a gesture indicating their surroundings, "everything, will stop."

The problem with Slon's request was that Kasuka didn't want Izaya to get hurt either. The more time he spent there, the more he pitied the man. If he was feeling so sick from only thinking about what was going to happen to him once the Russian decided he'd had enough, he could only imagine how much worse Izaya must have felt after experiencing the horror of being taken against his will. As such, he was finding it harder and harder to blame Izaya for seeking revenge on his brother. His family was however still the main reason why he was maintaining his silence. Unfortunately, the more time he spent locked in that room, the more disgust he felt towards Shizuo's past actions which were absolutely despicable no matter how he looked at it.

"Lower your knees," Slon ordered in a commanding voice, hoping to scare the actor into telling him what he wanted to know.

Kasuka slowly shook his head and further tightened trembling arms around his legs.

"Lower them, I said," Slon growled dangerously, hands flying forwards and pulling at Kasuka's legs when the actor refused to comply. He could've sworn he heard a whimper, but he couldn't be sure with all the commotion the struggling was causing. Even so, he should've known better than to underestimate Hanejima Yuuhei again, something he was reminded of when the man kicked him in the face hard enough to make blood run down his nose.

Not really thinking about what he was doing, Kasuka stood up and ran as fast as he could in the direction of the door, only remembering that his ankle was chained when he ended up tripping and then falling face down on the wooden floor. Slon was upon him the very next second, spouting insults and curses in Russian as he dragged him back and threw him on the bed.

"Tell me!" Slon roared. His control was slipping away and his pants felt tight around the crotch area but he didn't want to go through with it even though he desperately needed relief from this burning obsession that wasn't giving him peace. The mere thought of it felt wrong, as equally wrong as it had felt that day, and yet he couldn't pull away from the one he was pinning down on the bed.

As the bone-chilling fear gripped his senses at the sight of the bulge in Slon's pants, all Kasuka could do was shake his head and hope that he wouldn't be torn too badly. He was so terrified by it that he didn't even see the Russian raise a fist and only felt it when it impacted the left side of his face, the strength behind the blow enough to nearly send him plummeting into unconsciousness.

"Tell me!" Slon demanded again, this time pulling Kasuka up and throwing him down on the floor where he proceeded to viciously kick him in the stomach until he finally succeeded in reigning in his fury and chose to leave the room before it was too late and he ended up either killing or raping Hanejima Yuuhei.

***

After Izaya left, Shizuo got dressed, picked up the phone and the key and went to the police station to see the Sawazaki guy who was probably still waiting for him to state in writing that Izaya had nothing to do with the stabbing incident.

"I almost didn't recognize you," Sawazaki commented as he led him inside his office.

"I needed a change."

Sawazaki then motioned for Shizuo to take a seat. "I was starting to wonder if you'd forgotten or if you just don't care."

"I needed some time to get my strength back," Shizuo clarified.

"Ah, yes, you didn't look very well last time we talked."

"Coma does that to you," Shizuo mumbled, feeling slightly offended.

Sawazaki raised his eyes from the document he was reviewing and gave Shizuo a mocking look. "Really? Coma gives you bruises and a split lip?"

Shizuo coughed awkwardly but said nothing, very much aware that Sawazaki knew the truth anyway.

"So you still stand by what you said? That Orihara Izaya wasn't the one who stabbed you?" Sawazaki asked as he pushed the papers in Shizuo's direction, looking irritated.

"Yeah."

"But I thought you said that you don't know who stabbed you. For all you know, it could have been Orihara Izaya."

Shizuo's hand froze in mid-air just as he was about to pick up the pen.

"Isn't that right?" Sawazaki continued, hoping that by pushing him, the man would tell the truth.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

"Heiwajima-san?"

"I can smell the flea's stench a mile away," Shizuo finally said as he picked up the pen and signed the papers. "It wasn't him."

Sawazaki shook his head in disappointment and sighed softly. "Then I guess we're done here."

Shizuo stood up and made his way to the door. "There's one thing I'd like to know before I leave," Shizuo said as he pressed the door handle. "Are you one of the people working on finding my brother?"

"No, but I can assure you that the people who are on the case are doing everything in their power to find him."

"Thanks," Shizuo said, frowning, and walked out, now more than ever having zero faith in the people who failed to catch Izaya after stabbing him and leaving him to die.

Notes:

As some of you may know, I started writing this fic like a million years ago, back when some of the novels weren't even translated and back when I never even imagined there'd be a second drrr season. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the fic doesn't exactly follow the storyline/plot/events from the novels or the anime so if you see that some things are different, that's why. I never wanted the plot to be a copy of the canon anyway. I think it would've been boring. ^^;

That aside, the way Slon looks in the anime really bothers me. It's definitely not how I imagined him, not to mention that he looks completely different in that one image from the novels in which he's shown slamming a certain someone into a wall. He doesn't even have silver hair, but what looks like brown hair! One of these days I'm going to draw my own version of Slon, which will be the Blind Fury Slon. :|

EDIT: Cookies to whoever gets the Blood Hounds reference. xD

Chapter 77: Frozen Flower

With Shizuo gone, Shinra was finally able to visit Izaya. He'd been worried sick about his friend ever since he heard that Izaya was letting Shizuo stay in his apartment and he couldn't understand for the life of him why someone would choose to put themselves in danger like that. Luckily, Izaya looked surprisingly fine for someone who had spent some time caring for a monster. "Are you sure he didn't hurt you?" Shinra asked again, finding it hard to believe that no incident had taken place during that time.

With a roll of his eyes and a long sigh, Izaya reclined against the back of the couch until he was staring at the ceiling. "Nothing happened besides Shizu-chan being his usual idiotic self."

Shinra's eyes narrowed into slits as Izaya words reached his ears. "So something did happen!" he hissed. "What did he do?"

Izaya shook his head, still not looking at Shinra. "It wasn't a big deal."

"If it wasn't such a big deal, then telling me what happened shouldn't be a problem."

"We had an argument and he chased me around the apartment," Izaya finally revealed since he was too tired to argue with Shinra.

"Did he touch you? I warned him not to touch you!"

"I said I'm fine!" Izaya snapped and raised his head to look at Shinra, no longer in the mood to talk about something he didn’t want to recall. "We argued and he chased me around the place but nothing happened." Shinra might've seen him at his worst, but Izaya was still not comfortable with telling the doctor that he had panic attacks even though he assumed Shinra already knew or at least suspected. "Anyway, how are you?"

With Izaya no longer willing to talk, Shinra thought it'd be best he changed the subject since he didn't want to anger his friend. "I'm sad, so very sad!" Shinra complained in a whiny voice. "I barely see Celty anymore since she's always going out, either looking for Kasuka on her own or with Ruri."

Izaya chuckled darkly and picked Yuigadokusonmaru who was trying to get his attention. "I think Celty is trying to make it up to Shizuo by finding Kasuka. She thinks she's been a bad friend this whole time. What I'm more curious about is how she's going to make it up to me."

Shinra tore his eyes away from the cat to look at Izaya. "Why do you think that?"

"Because that's how Celty is," Izaya said as he rubbed his cheek against Yuigadokusonmaru's head.

"You're right," Shinra agreed, frowning. Celty was a kind soul and someone like her couldn't take Shizuo's side after what her friend had done, which meant that she had no choice but to either help both or neither of them. It was the only way to lessen the guilt and to help out her friend. That aside, there was one thing bothering him. "What are you doing with Kasuka's cat?" Shinra couldn't help but ask because he was certain that it was Kasuka's cat and yet it made no sense for Izaya to have it.

"Ruri wanted Shizu-chan to take care of it for a few days but he wasn't here when she dropped by so I convinced her to leave Doku-chan with me."

Shinra blinked a few times in disbelief. "Try not to kill it, okay? Kasuka cares about Yuigadokusonmaru a lot and he'd be heartbroken if something were to happen to it."

"If he's even still alive," Izaya mentioned it since there was a high probability the actor was already dead.

Shinra was about to argue that wasn't necessarily the case when they heard a knock on the door and Izaya got up to see who it was.

"Shizu-chan, what are you doing here?" Izaya asked, surprised, since he didn't think the mutt would come looking for him so soon after kicking him out.

"I went to the police station to declare that you weren't the one who stabbed me, but when I tried to go back to the apartment, I couldn't find it," Shizuo mumbled as he walked past Izaya and into the apartment, not really bothering to wait for an invitation. That's when his eyes caught sight of a frightened Shinra moving away from the couch and he saw red.

"You!" Shizuo growled and started running after a terrified Shinra who was screaming like someone was cutting into him. When compared to Izaya, Shinra seemed to be running at a snail's pace, so it didn't take Shizuo more than a few seconds to get his hands on the sadistic doctor whose bones he vowed to break if he ever caught him. Before Shinra even had a chance to beg, Shizuo grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall, hard enough to almost knock him out.

"Shizu-chan, stop!" Izaya screeched when he realized that Shizuo might actually kill Shinra with how angry he was, but the beast wasn't stopping and was instead squeezing Shinra's arm.

"I can't," Shizuo hissed as he struggled to fight the impulse to break Shinra's arm. He wanted to do it so badly but Izaya was telling him not to and for some reason he didn't want to upset Izaya more than he already had.

Seeing how Shinra was starting to turn blue with how hard Shizuo was squeezing his neck, Izaya knew that if he didn't act soon, his friend might die, so he did the only thing he could think of that didn't involve stabbing Shizuo in the back. "Bad Shizu-chan!" he admonished him with a hard smack on the head, surprising Shizuo enough to make him release Shinra who collapsed on the ground, struggling for air.

"What the fuck, flea?" Shizuo exclaimed in surprise since he couldn't believe that Izaya had just treated him like a dog in front of Shinra. If anything, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so embarrassed.

"You were killing him!" Izaya snapped as he pointed at Shinra who was coughing and struggling to breathe, at the same time hoping that he hadn't angered Shizuo enough to get attacked himself.

Shizuo gasped, feeling somewhat offended that Izaya would think him capable of killing Shinra. "I was not!" he tried to defend himself, but when his eyes fell upon a still rather pale-looking Shinra gasping for air, he realized that he might've used too much force.

Izaya shook his head and pointed in the direction of the upstairs bedroom. "Go wait in there for a while, until you've calm down."

"But I―"

"Go!"

"But―"

"Shizu-chan, go or so help me, I will stab you in the face," Izaya growled the warning as he pulled out his switchblade and flicked it open. Luckily, Shizuo seemed to have gotten the message since he headed in the direction of the stairs, mumbling about killing as he usually did whenever someone pissed him off. As soon as the beast was out of sight, Izaya crouched in front of Shinra to inspect the damage. "Are you okay? Can you get up?"

Shinra couldn't even nod let alone speak with how badly his throat hurt, so he grabbed Izaya by the arm and his friend helped him up. He almost couldn't believe that he was still alive, seeing how Shizuo had beat up people into unconsciousness for a lot less. Shinra took the glass of water Izaya offered him with a trembling hand and slowly sipped on it, thanking the heavens and any forces that might be out there for getting to live another day after angering Ikebukuro's monster.

Upstairs, Shizuo was pacing the room, still trying to calm down after nearly breaking Shinra's neck and arm. He felt no regrets towards attacking Shinra, not after what the sadistic doctor had done to him. If anything, he still regretted not having broken at least one of Shinra's arms, but then he remembered that he had actually broken one of Shinra's arms in the past and decided to simply let it go. Besides, when they were going to finally find Kasuka, they might need Shinra's help. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long before Izaya found something which could lead them to Kasuka and the kidnapper.

Speaking of Izaya, Shizuo couldn't help but notice that the flea still hadn't changed the sheets since kicking him out of the apartment. If anything, the bed looked untouched, as though no one had slept in it, so either Izaya had been too tired to change the sheets or the flea was crazy enough to throw out the bed and buy a new one. Once again he felt like shit for having intruded on Izaya's life like that. At least that meant he wouldn't have to keep standing, so he stopped pacing and was about to sit down on the bed when he heard a scratching sound at the door. Curious as to what it was, he opened it slowly and that's when he saw what looked exactly like Kasuka's cat.

Confused, he picked it up in his arms for a closer inspection, thus confirming that was indeed his brother's cat. "Hey, Yuigadokusonmaru, what are you doing here with Izaya?"

The cat meowed and climbed up to Shizuo's shoulder and then on top of his head. Shizuo could do nothing but frown and wait for Shinra to leave so that he could ask Izaya what he was doing with Kasuka's cat. Luckily, he didn't have to wait for long since Izaya showed up less than ten minutes later, wearing an irritated expression on his face.

"I can't believe you―" Izaya started but suddenly stopped when he noticed the cat sitting comfortably on top of Shizuo's head. Despite the shitty mood he was in, he couldn't help but burst into laughter. "Ahh ha ha ha! This is priceless," he said as he fished out his phone and snapped a picture of Shizuo. "Just priceless!"

"What the fuck, flea?" Shizuo growled as he grabbed Izaya by the front of his T-shirt and raised him high in the air until Izaya was barely standing on his toes. Sadly, it didn't look like Izaya cared since the bastard couldn't stop laughing. "Why did you take a picture of me? Give me that phone!" Shizuo snapped and tried to snatch it out of Izaya's hands, but the flea flicked open his switchblade and pressed it to his neck before Shizuo even saw him take it out of his pocket.

"I thought we agreed that you wouldn't touch me without permission," Izaya reminded him.

"But you took my picture without permission!" Shizuo argued.

Izaya's frown turned into an innocent smile. "I took a picture of Doku-chan who just so happened to be sitting on top of your head."

"But I'm still in the pic―"

"That's no different than Doku-chan sitting on my desk or the couch," Izaya continued in a sweet voice even as he pressed the blade harder. "Now let go before I slit your throat."

Disturbed by Izaya's creepy smile, Shizuo finally let go. "Bastard," he muttered as he shoved his hands inside the pockets of his pants. "Is Shinra gone?"

"I called a cab for him and told the driver to take him to the hospital. I also called Sakamoto and told him to take a look at Shinra. He wasn't very happy about it," Izaya recalled as he approached Shizuo and picked up Yuigadokusonmaru.

"Oi, what are you doing with my brother's cat?" Shizuo asked, frowning.

"Ruri came by because she needed you to take care of Doku-chan for a few days, but since you weren't here, she left him with me," Izaya told Shizuo who was just standing there like an idiot, most likely finding it hard to believe that Ruri would trust him with Kasuka's cat. "I don't enjoy torturing animals, just so you know."

"Oh, right, you only enjoy torturing humans; I forgot that," Shizuo replied sarcastically.

"I don't want to hear that from someone who gets off on someone else's pain," Izaya hissed before he turned on his heels and walked out of the room, body trembling with how angry he was.

Shizuo cursed under his breath and followed Izaya down the stairs, feeling completely guilty for having upset him again. "Just give me the address and the cat and I'll go," Shizuo said as he stopped in front of Izaya's desk and watched the man pet Yuigadokusonmaru's head.

"Doku-chan stays with me," Izaya announced without so much as looking at the beast threatening to take away the one thing he enjoyed having around. "I said that I will take care of him and I will. I actually love cats, so you don't have to worry about me hurting him, seeing how I even took care of the mutt I most despise," Izaya reminded him as he shot him a nasty glare. He then took out his phone and sent a message to Shizuo's phone. "I just texted you the address, so be on your way now, mutt."

Seeing how Yuigadokusonmaru appeared to be well taken care of, Shizuo conceded that perhaps it was best for Kasuka's cat to remain there. Besides, he didn't know how to take care of it anyway. "Fine, you can keep Yuigadokusonmaru, but if something happens to it, I'll fucking kill you."

"Ha! As if you could afford to kill me!" Izaya mocked, smirking. "You're just a mutt, lower than even Doku-chan in status."

Shizuo glowered but said nothing.

"That's what I thought~" Izaya said in a sinsong voice as he raised a hand and pointed somewhere behind Shizuo. "Don't let the door hit you on your way out."

Without another word, Shizuo turned around and left, eye twitching in irritation. "Damn you, flea," he muttered only after he closed the door. "Damn you."

***

Shinra was hoping that he wouldn't have to see Sakamoto, but the man was already waiting for him outside the hospital when the car stopped. Irritated, he slammed the door a bit too hard and headed in the doctor's direction.

"It's good to see you too," Sakamoto greeted him in a sarcastic voice as he extended a hand and pulled at Shinra's collar to have a better look at the bruised neck. "You really made Shizuo angry this time, huh?"

Since talking still hurt too much, Shinra took out his phone to type. [I regret nothing,] he told the doctor who shook his head, grabbed him by the lab coat and started pulling him towards the door. [I don't need anything. I'm fine.]

"Izaya asked me to take a look at you and that's exactly what I'm going to do."

[I already said I'm fine. I should know since I too am a doctor, remember?]

Frowning, Sakamoto pulled him inside the elevator. "I'm only doing what Izaya asked, so stop giving me a hard time."

[Since when do you do what Izaya asks of you?]

"Since he threatened to slice me up real good if I don't make sure you're okay," Sakamoto muttered and pulled Shinra out of the elevator when the door opened.

All Shinra could think of as Sakamoto dragged him in the direction of his office to better inspect the damage was that Izaya was being too overprotective and that for some strange reason, he didn't really mind.

***

The sun had only just set when Slon went back to check on his prisoner and found Kasuka still lying on the floor, violently trembling and with his arms tightly wrapped around his bruised stomach. Worried that the actor might really die, he picked him up in his arms and then carried him over to the bed where he laid him down gently and pulled away skinny arms to inspect the damage he'd caused earlier that day when he'd lost his temper.

"D-Don't t-touch me!" Kasuka snarled even though he knew he sounded pathetic.

"Calm down; I'm only going to take a look at your injuries," Slon said in the nicest tone he could muster since he couldn't help but feel horrible for bringing Hanejima Yuuhei to such a deplorable state. Unlike his previous victims, Kasuka was someone he liked and while at times he couldn't help but explode and hurt the man, he still didn't want to kill him. "I'll be right back," he promised and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to close the door. He came back a few minutes later, carrying several clothing articles in one hand and a blanket in the other.

Kasuka's eyes widened in disbelief and he would've rubbed at them to make sure he wasn't hallucinating but he no longer had the energy to even lift an arm let alone to get dressed by himself. Slon also seemed to be aware of that since the Russian proceeded to dress him himself, the man's hands luckily never lingering for too long in any one spot. The clothes were much too big for him but they were warm and that was more than Kasuka could ask for given the situation. He was still trembling and the feeling of ice sloshing through his veins was still very much present, but at least his body was no longer exposed to the Russian's hungry eyes and the cold air.

"W-Why?" he couldn't help but ask as he curled into a tight ball, hoping to warm up faster.

"You're useless to me dead," Slon told him as he wrapped the blanket around the actor. "I'll be right back," he then said and left the room, once again leaving the door open.

Kasuka looked at it for a few moments as he contemplated the idea of escaping, but he soon gave up on it knowing that he wouldn't get very far. His eyes then moved to the uncuffed chain lying on the floor and he laughed bitterly at the irony of it all. He was free to run away since Slon had uncuffed his ankle to put on the pants, and yet he had no energy to do so. That and he feared what might happen to him if he even attempted such a thing. In the end, he quietly sat there, waiting for his captor to return.

"I brought you some food," Slon said as he walked into the room around fifteen minutes later, carrying a bowl of hot instant soup and a sandwich which he placed on the small table near the bed. "I'll give you this food if you at least tell me one thing."

Kasuka's eyes moved from the sandwich and settled on Slon's bandaged face.

"You said that what happened back then wasn't your fault. Does that mean Izaya used you to take revenge on your brother?"

Seeing no harm in answering since Slon probably thought Shizuo was dead anyway, Kasuka nodded slowly before his eyes moved back to the sandwich.

Now that Slon knew for a fact that Kasuka was completely innocent, he felt more than a bit guilty for doing this to the actor, but he still couldn't let him go before finding out the whole truth. In the meantime, he had to make sure the actor didn't starve or freeze to death, so he sat down on the bed next to him, picked up the spoon, scooped some soup and raised it to Kasuka's mouth who was looking at him as though he'd gone mad. "Eat."

Kasuka's dry mouth watered a bit at the sight of the spoon filled with hot soup hovering in front of his face but he didn't open it even though he was dying of hunger. He'd been humiliated too much already and he doubted he would ever be able to live it down even if he ever got out of there alive.

"Open your mouth," Slon ordered and moved the spoon closer to Kasuka's face until it was touching what looked like almost blue lips.

When the hunger finally won over his own pride, Kasuka swallowed the saliva gathered in his mouth and slowly parted his lips, eyes nearly turning in his head when he was assaulted by the strong taste of what he could only describe as the most delicious soup he had ever tasted. He didn't even care that he was being fed by his kidnapper, and he continued to eat even though he was feeling full and his stomach was starting to hurt. "Sandwich p-please," he requested in a low voice.

Slon picked up the sandwich and brought it to Kasuka's mouth, but his prisoner only took three bites out of it before turning his head to the side and refusing to eat. "You don't like it?" he asked with a frown as he placed the sandwich back on the plate and picked up the spoon again, thinking that the actor preferred the soup over the sandwich he'd made for him.

"Full," Kasuka said in a tired voice as he closed his eyes.

Slon was about to argue that Kasuka hadn't eaten much, but he realized that the man's stomach had probably shrunk after going without food for twelve days. In the end, he concluded that what the actor needed was some sleep instead of more food. He knew better than to underestimate Kasuka though, so he picked up the chain and cuffed it to the man's ankle before helping him lie down and covering him with the blanket. "We'll talk again tomorrow."

Kasuka heard the door close and then Slon locking it but it didn't bother him as much as it did the past couple of weeks since for the first time in a very long time he was feeling like a human being again instead of an animal or a piece of meat. As he lay there in bed, curled into a tight ball and enjoying warmth he hadn't felt since he'd fallen asleep with Ruri in his arms, he blinked rapidly to chase away the tears threatening to fall. Whether it was because he was sad or because he'd been shown kindness just as he was starting to believe that he was going to either die of hunger or cold and that he would never get to see his loved ones again, he did not know, but what he did know was that he didn't want to die and that he was grateful to Slon for having treated him like a human being if only for that one afternoon.

Chapter 78: Altered Course

Kasuka was still sleeping when Slon went to check up on him the next day. "Hey, wake up," the Russian said as he grabbed the blanket and pulled it away from the curled up form, but the man was still not waking up so Slon placed a hand on the skinny shoulder and shook him awake.

Kasuka tried to move to a sitting position as soon as he opened his eyes, but his stomach still hurt and he had no strength in his arms so he ended up falling back on the bed.

"Still no energy I see," Slon remarked, frowning beneath the bandages covering his face. "I'll bring you some food soon, but first we need to talk about something."

"Okay, thank you," Kasuka replied in a low voice and tried to get up again, but this time he received help from Slon who maneuvered him until he was resting with his back against the wall.

"I think it's time we have an honest conversation, don't you agree?" Slon said as he sat down on the bed.

Kasuka pulled the blanket over his legs with quivering hands and nodded slowly without even raising his head to look at the man.

"Listen," Slon started as he placed a hand on Kasuka's ankle and squeezed it gently. "I don't think you should pay for Orihara Izaya's sins."

"I'm not paying for his sins, I'm paying for my brother's sins," Kasuka thought bitterly and shuddered when he felt and saw Slon's hand starting to move up his leg.

"I don't want to kill you," Slon told him and stilled his hand for a few moments when it reached the actor's knee before continuing on its path. "You know what I want."

Kasuka was hit by nausea when the hand reached his thighs but he didn't dare move nor fight back. Instead, he just sat there unmoving, wet eyes glued to the massive bandaged hand caressing his thigh while trembling and wondering if what he feared the most would soon happen. He was so terrified that he almost didn’t hear Slon when the man started talking again.

"Unfortunately, I don't think you'd want that," Slon said and pulled back his hand.

"I don't want it," Kasuka immediately replied, at the same time pulling the blanket higher up his body.

"I will though, if you don't tell me why Izaya did what he did," Slon promised in a dangerous voice. "I'll do it and then I'll start cutting into you, at first skin, then fingers, then who knows what else? And if you're still refusing to talk, I’ll completely break you, but by then it'll be too late for you to ever go back to the Hanejima Yuuhei people know and love. You’re already feeling it, don’t you? The hopelessness that comes with knowing you have no power and no way out.”

“…”

“So, what do you say? Will you help me?"

"…"

"You're probably thinking that once I find out I'm going to do it anyway and then I’m going to kill you."

Kasuka nodded slowly.

"If you tell me what I want to know, I give you my word that I'm going to let you go without touching you," Slon promised in the most serious tone he could muster, which wasn't that difficult since he meant every word. "Once I have the information I need, I’m going to punish Izaya."

"Are you going to kill him?"

"Yes, but you don't need to worry about that. No one else is going to get hurt besides Izaya, I promise. Besides, wouldn’t you want the man who nearly got you raped to pay for what he did?"

As tempted as he was to talk and finally go home, he couldn't allow Slon to most likely torture and kill Izaya, not when the things the Informant had done were the desperate acts of a broken man seeking revenge. Orihara Izaya might've been a pretty horrible human being, but Kasuka didn't think the man deserved to die. If anything, he hoped that Izaya would one day find peace.

"So… how about it?”

“…”

“Still not sure, huh? In that case, I'll give you a few days to think about it, but you'd better hurry because my patience is running thin," Slon warned and stood up. "I'll give you five. It’s more than enough time for you to make a decision."

"Thank you. I will think about it," Kasuka replied in a slightly trembling voice, mostly because he was still freezing and the hunger was worse than ever before. With the way things were, it looked like he had no choice but to either sacrifice himself or to throw Izaya under the bus in order to literally save his own ass.

***

Shizuo had just finished getting a haircut when he got a call from Shiki telling him to get ready because he had a job for him. As much as he wanted to refuse, the only thing coming out of his mouth was the address he was at. He almost called Izaya and told him that he wasn’t going to work for the Yakuza, but he knew better than to do that when Kasuka was still missing and the police had no clue who had taken him. Izaya didn't know much either, but at least the flea had gotten to the van before anyone else and that told Shizuo just how good Izaya was at his job. Luckily, or unfortunately, depending how he looked at it, the car arrived not even fifteen minutes later, leaving him little time to decide on whether or not he should be working for the Yakuza.

“What do I have to do?” he asked Shiki as soon as he got into the car.

“Beat this man unconscious and then bring him to the car,” Shiki said as he handed him a photo. “It shouldn’t be any problem for you since it’s something you do quite often.”

The fact that Shiki’s words were true pissed Shizuo off even more, but he still pocketed the photo without protesting and remained silent the rest of the way there. What the man had done was irrelevant. It was what Shizuo had to do, even if the price was that he’d drown in self-loathing afterwards. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hurt an innocent person and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wouldn’t be the last either. After what felt like an eternity of agonizing about what he had to do, the car finally stopped in front of a rundown building.

“He’s in apartment 302. I’ll wait here,” Shiki told him before he lit up a cigarette and took a drag from it.

Shizuo got out of the car without a word and headed straight into the building, not even bothering to stop and wait for the elevator and instead making his way up the stairs toward the third floor. He was surprisingly calm considering how he had no choice but to beat someone up, but the sad truth was that it was just as Shiki had said; it wouldn’t be the first time it happened and it certainly wouldn’t be the last either. Once he reached the apartment he pushed the door open, breaking the lock in the process, and went inside, finding the guy sitting on a ragged couch and watching something on TV.

The man jumped to his feet when he saw him and pulled out a switchblade. “Who the hell are you?”

“I don’t think it really matters,” Shizuo answered right before he charged forward, easily dodging the switchblade attack and punching the man in the face hard enough to knock him out. He then picked him up, flung him over his shoulder and went back to the car. “What do I do with him now?”

Shiki, who had gotten out of the car in the meantime, was surprised to see Shizuo back so fast. “He looks unhurt,” he couldn’t help but remark since he was hoping that Heiwajima Shizuo would at least hurt the man a little before bringing him down.

“You told me to beat him unconscious and that’s what I did,” Shizuo said as he dropped the unconscious guy into the trunk of the car, as indicated by Shiki, and then lit up a cigarette. “It’s not my fault that all it took was a punch.”

“You’re right,” Shiki reluctantly conceded. “Can I drop you off anywhere?”

“That’s all you needed me for?” Shizuo asked, sounding surprised.

“Drop me at the same place you picked me up from,” Shizuo answered and got into the car after Shiki nodded. He’d done what was asked of him, but after a few moments of silence, he couldn’t help but ask the question bothering him ever since he’d been told to beat up a stranger. “What did he do?”

“You didn’t seem to care about it before,” Shiki remarked.

“Well, I do now.”

“He attacked one of our members in front of his kid,” Shiki answered with a hint of anger in his tone.

“Did the kid get hurt?” Shizuo couldn’t help but ask even though he didn’t know Shiki’s subordinate or the man’s son.

“Yes, and that’s why we’re going to make an example out of him.”

In this case, Shizuo couldn’t disagree. If anything, he regretted not breaking a bone or two before carrying the guy back to the car, but he had a feeling that Shiki would take care of that. Still, there was one more thing he needed to know. “Why did you ask me to catch him though? Your men could’ve done it.”

Shiki threw the cigarette butt out the window now that he’d finished smoking and turned to Shizuo. “Isn’t that exactly what I did? I had one of my men catch him.”

“I’m not…” Shizuo started but drifted off, not because he didn’t consider himself to be one of Shiki’s men but because he saw Tom with a blonde woman when the car stopped at an intersection and he couldn’t help but smile thinking that his senpai was out on a date. He couldn’t get a good look at the woman’s face, but she was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and red shorts and Shizuo made a mental note to ask Tom about her next time they met. The car started again and he turned his attention back to Shiki who was looking straight ahead. “As I was saying, I’m not one of your men and I’m not going to join the Yakuza.”

Shiki didn’t bother to contradict him. Instead, he gave him a “we’ll see" look before taking out his phone to read the message he’d just received. No words were exchanged after that until the car finally stopped about twenty minutes later. “We’re here,” he announced and then waited until Shizuo got out before calling Izaya.

“He was surprisingly obedient,” Shiki told the man who had somehow managed to convince the strongest guy in Ikebukuro and his archenemy to do his bidding. If this didn’t prove Izaya was an evil genius, then he didn’t know what would.

“I told you, Shiki-san, didn’t I?” Izaya bragged with a chuckle as he swiveled in his office chair. “He will follow your orders as long as you don’t ask him to kill people.”

“I wasn’t planning to anyway.”

“I see…”

“You sound disappointed, Informant-san,” Shiki remarked. He had no doubts that Izaya wanted him to force Heiwajima Shizuo into some nasty situations, but he had no plans to do so, not when he was hoping to one day make Ikebukuro’s strongest one of his subordinates.

“No, not at all,” Izaya eventually replied. “Well, okay, maybe a little,” he then added with a chuckle. “But can you blame me?”

“No, not really. Like I said, your hatred of Heiwajima Shizuo is not exactly a secret. Anyway, I have to take another call.”

“Until next time, Shiki-san,” Izaya said in cheerful tone before ending the call and placing the phone on the desk. As he continued to stare at the small device trying to decide whether or not he should call his therapist again, he felt a deep sense of glee knowing that he was the one who had forced Shizuo into a situation the beast hated. It was nowhere near the nightmare he’d been forced to go through, but it was better than nothing. As for Fujita Shizuka, he’d called her before messaging Shiki. Strangely enough, the woman hadn’t picked up. For a fraction of a second, as he sat there staring at the phone, he worried that she might’ve had enough of him, but he pushed that thought aside, realizing that he was being paranoid.

***

It was around nine in the evening when Shinra heard his beloved enter the apartment and he ran to the door to hug her. “Celty, I missed you so much! You barely come home anymore!” he whined as he clung to her and refused to let go even when she tried to push him away.

[You know why…] Celty replied and hoped that Shinra would release her since she wanted nothing more than to lie down on the couch and get some rest. One might argue that someone like her didn’t need rest since she was a Dullahan, but the tiredness she felt was not of a physical nature.

Shinra pulled away, pouting. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

Celty’s shoulders drooped as she typed her reply to Shinra’s complaint. [I know. I’m sorry. Are you okay?]

“Y-Yeah, yeah, I’m fine!” Shinra stuttered and immediately proceeded to tighten the scarf around his neck to hide the nasty bruises Shizuo had left behind. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

[I can tell. Your voice sounds much rougher than usual.]

Shinra would’ve loved nothing more than to start ranting about what had happened at Izaya’s apartment, but he knew better than to say or do anything to disturb the fragile balance he’d witnessed between the two archenemies. He hated the idea of Izaya being anywhere near Shizuo, but he couldn’t deny that his friend was doing a good job at keeping the beast in line.

[I’ll make you some tea,] Celty offered.

“I’m lucky! Oh, so lucky~!” Shinra said in an awkward singsong voiced as he pranced into the living room and sat down on the couch.

[It’s just tea.]

Shinra gasped. “Just tea?! It’s tea made by my darling Celty, and that makes it the best tea in the world!”

[You’re an idiot,] Celty typed as she shook her helmet, amused by Shinra’s adorable antics.

“But I’m your idiot~” Shinra said and pulled Celty, who was standing in front of him, right into his lap. Surprised, she tried to get up, but Shinra tightened his hold around her, not yet ready to let go. “I love you.”

[I love you too.]

“No, you don’t understand. I love you so much that sometimes I think I’d die if you ever left me,” Shinra confessed in a trembling voice.

[I’m not going to leave you,] Celty promised even though she couldn’t be sure she’d be able to keep her promise once she found her head.

“Please don’t leave me,” Shinra begged pathetically.

[I won’t. I will never leave you.]

“Thank you,” he whispered softly and finally released her, but Celty nestled into his arms and they both stayed like that for a while, enjoying each other’s presence.

***

Hunger is a strange thing, Kasuka thought as he chewed on the sandwich Slon had brought him that morning. His stomach was full to the point that it hurt to eat more and yet he couldn’t stop, part because he worried that Slon might change his mind and leave him to starve again and part because he was still feeling hungry. Or maybe it was because he desperately needed energy to try to find a way to escape now that his kidnapper had left to buy more food.

He was staring at the chain wondering if there was something he could do to free himself when he heard the sound of a car approaching and assumed that Slon had forgotten something, but he soon realized that might not be the case when the person outside started hitting the door with something. He wanted to believe it was someone looking for him, but he didn’t dare hope, not yet anyway. He still got up though and moved to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the car through the cracks in the wooden bars. He couldn’t see much, but it was enough to conclude that what was parked outside was a regular car instead of the van he’d been brought in.

A feeling of relief washed over him, now certain that it was someone else, and he moved to the door where he started pounding on it with the little strength he had left. “I’m in here!” he shouted as loudly as he could and continued to pound on the door while the person outside was still at the entrance, trying to get in. “I’m in here, please get me out.” Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the person managed to get inside and Kasuka moved closer to the door, anxious to find out who his savior was. “Hello! Can you hear―” He didn’t get to finish though because there was a loud bang and he ended up jumping backwards, startled by the unexpected sound.

The door creaked open and Kasuka felt a wave of hopelessness wash over him when Adabashi Kisuke walked in, wearing the most sadistic expression he ever had the misfortune of seeing.

“You’re mine now,” the man said, his tone a promise of pain to come.

Chapter 79: Merciless Fate

Out of all the people in the world, the one who found him turned out to be the man who had tried to kill him before. The situation might’ve been funny in a sort of twisted way, if not for the fact that it was completely terrifying.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” Adabashi taunted when he received no reply from the actor. “Or should I say, the Russian got your tongue?” Unfortunately, the man was as irritatingly silent as ever. “Tch! I knew you were a mute, but even you should know better.”

The reason why Kasuka wasn’t saying anything though was because there was nothing to say. He was at a loss as to what to do next.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Get down on your knees and start begging for your life,” Adabashi ordered as he raised the gun and pointed it to Kasuka’s head, but the man wasn’t listening to him and was instead just looking at him with that same emotionless expression Adabashi wanted to see twisted in agony, especially when he himself had begged back when the freak’s monster of a brother was breaking his bones with what he could only describe as inhuman strength. After what he’d been through, it was a miracle that he was still alive and in one piece, albeit with metal pins in some of his bones, but alive and able to move nonetheless. Therapy hadn’t been easy, and he was going to pay back a thousand times fold the pain he’d been forced to endure because of the two brothers. “Beg, I said!” he growled threateningly.

If there was one thing Kasuka knew about Adabashi Kisuke, it was that the man wanted him dead, and since death was the only fate awaiting him, he had nothing to lose. He had no doubts that he could’ve easily overpowered him if he was at full strength since Adabashi was nowhere near as smart or as strong as Slon, but with the way things were, all he could do was try his best and hope that against all odds, he’d manage to turn the tables in his favor. Now that he knew what he had to do, he began to slowly lower himself to a kneeling position, at the same time trying to gather all the strength he had left for one last desperate attack.

“It looks like you’re finally starting to unders―” Before he could finish though, Kasuka was upon him, the man grabbing the hand in which he was holding the gun and springing to his feet with startling speed for someone who looked like he was about to croak. He immediately punched Kasuka in the face, but the man kneed him in the crotch area and all he could do was screech, curse and shout threats as he struggled to push the much skinnier but somehow extremely strong man away from him.

Kasuka was starting to feel dizzy with how much effort he was putting into trying to take the gun from Adabashi’s hand when he lacked the energy to do so, but he kept on fighting, refusing to let go even after nearly getting knocked out by a particularly strong punch to the face.

“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you!” Adabashi vowed as he kept on hitting Kasuka while the bastard he was looking forward to torturing surprised him yet again by sinking his teeth into his forearm. He screamed and tried to throw the wild animal off of him, but Kasuka wasn't letting go so Adabashi had no choice but to maneuver them both closer to the wall so that he could bash the bastard's head into it, which was exactly what he did, over and over again until he knocked him out.

At that point, he was too angry to stop, so he switched to kicking the unconscious body until he ran out of breath and finally decided he'd had enough. Panting heavily, he walked out of the room and went to retrieve the cuffs he'd seen on the coffee table before going back to the car to pick up the bolt cutter, all the while limping and cursing the man for hitting him in an area where no man should ever hit another man.

“I'll make you regret this,” Adabashi hissed as he worked on cutting one of the chain's links and then proceeded to cuff Kasuka's wrists and ankles. Luckily, the actor was not that heavy, so Adabashi managed to carry him to the car, dump him into the trunk and then get the hell out of there before Slon came back and killed him for trying to steal his prey.

***

Izaya was in the process of typing an email when Yuigadokusonmaru decided that the laptop's keyboard seemed like a good place to sleep on.

"Bad Doku-chan!” Izaya admonished when he realized that the email had been sent before he could finish typing it. "Now what will my client say when he'll receive it?”

Yuigadokusonmaru didn't care though. He yawned, curled into a tight ball and started to purr while Izaya shook his head and reclined in his desk chair, figuring that he might as well take a break.

He felt the need to talk to his therapist but he was reluctant to call her, wondering if she might not answer again. Even so, he still picked up the phone, since he couldn't accept the fact that she might not want to treat him anymore, typed the number and nervously waited to hear her voice. To his relief, she picked up.

"Nakura-san, I apologize for not answering the phone the past few days but I had some personal problems to deal with. I hope you understand.”

"Of course I do, Fujita-san,” Izaya assured her. "You're probably over-working yourself anyway. You should take a vacation sometimes.”

"I wish I could, but I can't afford to take one, especially now that my friend is in trouble.”

Izaya could tell that she was upset about whatever was happening, and for some strange reason, it bothered him that she was having a hard time. Then again, it wasn't that surprising since he liked her as a therapist and as a human being. "Is it something serious?”

"Yes, I believe it is, but enough about me and my friend. Tell me about yourself, Nakura-san. How have you been since we last talked?”

Izaya let out a long sigh. "I'm a bit irritated that the people who were supposed to bring the new bed haven't arrived yet. Sleeping on the couch is very uncomfortable.”

"What's wrong with your current bed?”

"There was this dirty disgusting mutt I had no choice but to take care of for a few days and you can imagine that I'd rather sleep on the floor than on that bed since it stinks of beast.” He would've loved nothing more than to avoid the hassle of buying a new bed, but changing the sheets wasn't enough to get rid of the beast's stench. It made his skin crawl just thinking about it.

"Are you talking about a dog or―”

“On the bright side,” Izaya interrupted her, feeling the need to change the subject since he was not yet ready to tell her that he'd let his aggressor live with him for a couple of weeks, “I got a pet.”

“Oh, so you were talking about a dog.”

“No, I hate mutts. I got a cat. You can't even imagine how adorable he is,” Izaya said in a cheerful voice as he patted Yuigadokusonmaru's head.

“I bet he is. I prefer dogs, but cats make great companions too, even though they almost never listen to you,” Shizuka mused, thinking about the cat she used to have back when she was growing up.

“But that's what makes them great!” Izaya chirped, swiveling in his desk chair. “They're independent and they don't need attention every second of every day.”

“Yes, I agree. They make especially good companions to busy people, and I have a feeling that Nakura-san is a very busy person.”

"Mhm.”

"May I ask what made you decide to get a cat?”

"I didn't. Someone left it with me for a while, though I have a feeling that it may be a permanent thing.” The reason why he even said such a thing was because he couldn't ignore the possibility that Kasuka was already dead. "Actually,” Izaya continued even though he wasn't sure that revealing such a thing was a good idea, "the cat belongs to that monster's brother.”

It didn't happen very often, but Shizuka was at a loss for words. Still, after a few moments of trying to find the best way to continue the conversation, she finally knew what she wanted to say. "That's very kind of you. Does that mean you're in good terms with that man's brother?”

"Not at all.”

"Do you hate him then? Because if you do, it'd be strange for you to take care of that person's cat, unless you really love cats and you don't care who the owner is.”

"I don't know, but what I do know for sure is that I'm angry at him for taking that monster's side,” Izaya admitted.

"Many humans are like that, Nakura-san. They can't abandon family no matter what the other has done. Do you have… ah, nevermind. You told me not to ask personal questions like that. Anyway, if you have siblings, then perhaps you might be able to understand.”

Izaya wanted to say that he didn't, but then he remembered how annoyed he'd been because of Aoba and the fact that the guy was hanging around his sisters and in the end he chose to remain silent since he didn't feel like lying.

"I guess you do. Anyway, I'm sorry, but I have to go.”

“I understand. I'll call tomorrow, around the same time,” Izaya promised since he had a feeling that she sometimes worried he might not call back, just as he worried that she might not answer.

“I'll wait for your call.”

After placing the phone on the desk, Izaya picked up Yuigodukusonmaru. “I really have to send that email again before I leave,” he said with a smile as he petted the cat's head. “You'll be fine while I'm gone, right?”

“Meow!”

“Good boy!”

***

Shizuo was blankly staring into space while waiting for Tom to show up. His senpai had no idea he would find him there, but that was because Shizuo wanted to surprise him since he suspected Tom might be wondering how he was doing because of the arrangement with Izaya. As expected, Tom showed up no more than five minutes later, but what was surprising was that the woman from last time was accompanying him yet again. Shizuo thought about getting up and leaving the place before Tom saw him, but unfortunately he didn't even manage to take a couple of steps away from the table before his senpai called out his name. Cringing a bit at the awkward situation, he calmly turned around and tried not to look angry or terrifying since he didn't want to scare her away.

“I almost didn't recognize you because of the hair color,” Tom said as soon as he stopped in front of Shizuo.

“Ah, yeah, somehow this happened. Anyway, I'm sorry, Tom-san, I didn't know you'd have company.”

“No, no, I'm glad you're here. This way you get to meet the newest employee of our company. She's Vorona, my new bodyguard,” Tom announced with a smile since he couldn't wait to see Shizuo's reaction to how good she was at fighting. As expected, Shizuo blinked and gave her a disbelieving look before turning to him.

“You're not joking?”

“Of course not! Anyway, let me introduce you two. Shizuo, this is Vorona. Vorona, this is Shizuo.”

It took Shizuo a moment to realize that he was staring and he shook his head. Surely his boss wouldn't have hired her if she couldn't handle a few thugs.

“Nice to meet you,” he eventually said.

“Likewise,” Vorona replied and was about to take a seat at the table when she caught sight of Orihara Izaya outside the window, staring at her from across the small street. Since Tom and Shizuo were talking between them, she took the opportunity to make a gesture with her head, indicating to Izaya that he should come talk to her.

“So what would you two like to eat today? I'm buying,” Tom announced happily.

Vorona turned to Tom. “May I be excused for a few minutes?”

“Sure, sure! Is there something in particular you'd like me to order for you?”

“Something nutritious,” she said before she stood up and made her way to the bathroom.

Izaya, who was debating whether or not he should go talk to her, eventually decided to do so since the only logical conclusion he could come up with in regard to the alarming events taking place was that Vorona had started hanging around Tanaka Tom because she was most likely fishing for information.

Swallowing nervously, he made his way inside the building and went straight to the bathroom where he assumed she would be waiting for him, but not before making sure that he hadn't forgotten his switchblade at home.

“Orihara Izaya, are you following Heiwajima Shizuo?” Vorona asked as soon as the Informant closed the door.

“Would it be a problem if I was?”

“No.”

“What I'm more interested is why you're hanging around Tanaka Tom.”

“I'm working for his boss now,” Vorona replied without hesitation since trying to hide things would only make Izaya even more suspicious. She didn't want the man who had almost killed Slon to be certain that she had every intention of killing him once her business partner gave her the green light. Until then, her job was to gather as much information as possible on Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo, just as Slon had requested.

Izaya, who was still rather nervous, reclined against the door and folded his arms, trying to look calm. “Really now? So you went from being a hitman to a debt collector? Why is that?”

“Such information does not concern you.”

“That may be true,” Izaya agreed as he took a couple of steps in her direction, “but you can't blame me for being curious, especially if someone hired you to kill him.” Izaya couldn't be sure that she was there because of Shizuo, but he was hoping that by playing dumb, she might slip up and reveal something. The possibility was small but still worth a try.

“I am not here to dispose of Heiwajima Shizuo,” Vorona made it clear and tried to move past Izaya so that she could go back, but when Izaya abruptly lifted his arm to stop her, she reacted on instinct and raised her elbow to hit him in the face. Unfortunately, not only did she miss her target but she also had to dodge a switchblade slash, the swift attack making her realize that if she didn't take Izaya out, she might end up dead.

Shizuo was in the process of trying to assure Tom that he was fine when he heard a scream coming from the direction of the bathroom. They both stood up and rushed there, thinking that someone might need help, only to find a terrified woman backing away slowly from whatever was inside. Thinking that someone might've attacked Vorona because of the debt collecting, he rushed past the woman, ready to break the limbs of whoever had touch her, but what he found inside was something he never could've imagined.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Shizuo growled at Izaya who had Vorona pinned to the wall and a switchblade threatening to slit her throat at the slightest of movements.

“Nothing much,” Izaya replied after forcing an innocent smile on his face.

“Are you okay? Did this flea hurt you?” Shizuo asked Vorona who looked surprisingly calm for someone who had just fought Orihara Izaya.

“She attacked me first. I was only defending―” Izaya tried to explain, but the rest of words got caught in his throat when Shizuo grabbed him by the arm hard enough for it to bruise.

“I'm sorry,” Shizuo apologized to both Tom and Vorona before dragging Izaya out of the bathroom and down the hallway leading to the exit while ignoring the whispers and terrified looks of the people who had gathered there.

“Let go,” Izaya hissed as soon as they were out of the building, but the idiotic brute was completely ignoring him. “Shizu-chan, if you don't let me go, I'm going to slice off your fingers,” Izaya warned if only to avoid dirtying his jacket with the beast's filthy blood.

“I don't want to fight in the middle of the street and I bet you don't either, so shut the hell up and follow me,” Shizuo growled and this time he released Izaya who shot him a murderous look before sighing and nodding reluctantly.

“Tell me where you're going and I'll meet you there. It's not a good idea for people to see us together; someone might recognize you,” Izaya reminded him since it looked like Shizuo had forgotten that some of Kasuka's crazy fans might try to kill him because they thought the actor had traded his life for that of his brother. The theory didn't even make sense but they needed someone to be angry at and Ikebukuro's beast seemed to be the perfect target.

“Fine, then meet me at your apartment, the one I'm staying at.”

***

Izaya found Shizuo pacing around the living room when he arrived at the apartment.

“Took you long enough,” Shizuo mumbled.

“Excuse me for not rushing here,” Izaya replied in a mocking voice before sitting down on the couch and folding his arms in front of his chest.

Finally, Shizuo stopped pacing and walked to the couch, but didn't sit down and instead stood there in front of him, glowering down at the annoying flea who looked just as annoyed as he was. “Why did you attack Vorona?”

“Like I said, she attacked me first. I only wanted to talk to her,” Izaya hissed in annoyance.

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“Well, believe it, and would you sit down already?!” he snapped since he didn't like Shizuo towering over him.

“Fine,” Shizuo muttered and took a seat on the coffee table so that he could face Izaya while talking to him. “What was that about anyway? Do you know her?”

“I know enough not to trust her. She's dangerous, so stay away from her,” Izaya warned but said nothing else. He could've told him that Vorona and Slon were business partners, but it would've been pointless since Vorona most likely didn't know how and why exactly Slon had died. Besides, it wasn't like Izaya expected or wanted Shizuo to protect him from Vorona since the mere thought of having to rely on Shizuo made him scowl.

“She got hired as a bodyguard for a debt collector. Of course she's dangerous,” Shizuo replied in a flat tone since Izaya's remark seemed too stupid to have come out of the flea's mouth. “Or is there something else I should know about?”

“No, nothing. It doesn't concern you anyway,” Izaya said and in the next moment he stood up.

Shizuo stood up as well, frowning and wondering what the hell was up with Izaya. “If you know something, then say it.”

“It's fine, Shizu-chan. Like I said, it's not something you need to concern yourself with. Anyway, I'll talk to you later. Ah, but before I go,” Izaya added as he placed a hand on the beast's shoulder and leaned in. “You should've listened,” he whispered into Shizuo's ear and in the next moment he stabbed him in the left side of the abdomen, careful not to hit any vital organs.

“'the hell...?” Shizuo uttered in shock when he realized that Izaya had just stabbed him. “Why?” he couldn't help but ask as he took a step backwards, but by then Izaya was out the door and he was left standing there, bleeding and trying to figure out what he'd done wrong.

***

After buying food and some vitamins, Slon hurried back to the cabin, for once in a good mood because he had a feeling that Hanejima Yuuhei would soon talk. He couldn't deny that he admired the actor for the courage displayed this whole time, especially when tougher men had crumbled in defeat minutes after being captured, but that didn't mean he wanted the situation they were in to go on for much longer. All Slon wanted was to find out the truth behind the whole thing so that he could finally kill Izaya and move on with his life.

Sighing, he picked up the grocery bags and then made his way to the cabin, not realizing that something had gone wrong in his absence until he stopped in front of the door and saw that the lock had been broken from the outside. Cursing under his breath, he placed the bags down, took his gun out and slowly headed for the bedroom. Unfortunately, Hanejima Yuuhei was no longer there, and on closer inspection, Slon concluded that the chain had been cut which meant that indeed someone else had taken the actor instead of the man somehow freeing himself. That meant the place was no longer safe and that he had to get rid of any evidence linking him to the kidnapping.

With that thought in mind, he went out to the van, picked up the gas canister and then went back inside the cabin where he started pouring the liquid on the floor and walls, but he was forced to rush out when he heard the sounds of approaching cars indicating that the police was probably on their way there. At that point, he knew that the only way to escape was on foot because of the narrow road leading up to the cabin, so he quickly poured some gas on the van, lit it and the cabin on fire and then ran deeper into the woods, gun in hand and ready to kill anyone who followed him.

Chapter 80: Hope Leaves

Sometimes between getting stabbed and bandaging the wound in the hope of stopping the bleeding so that he wouldn't have to go to a hospital to get it stitched up, Shizuo managed to figure out what he'd done wrong, but he couldn't help but be annoyed at Izaya for taking such an extreme action because of a simple mistake. It wasn't like he'd done it with any other thought than to break up the fight. “Damn flea,” Shizuo muttered as he lay down on the couch, closed his eyes and told himself over and over again that he should never again touch Izaya, unless the bastard's life was in danger or something. And as he lay there, trying to hammer that idea into his head, the phone started ringing after a while, but he wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone so he ignored it until he could no longer stand the sound and went to pick it up from where he'd left it in the bathroom. “What you want now?” Shizuo growled into the phone since he was especially not in the mood to talk to the man who had just stabbed him.

“Meet me in front of the building in ten minutes.”

“Why? So that you can stab me again?”

“Of course not, unless you're stupid enough to repeat your transgression,” Izaya warned, making it clear that he would not hesitate if the idiotic brute didn't learn to keep its hands to itself.

“I don't want to see your mug for the rest of today,” Shizuo made it clear as well before ending the call and walking out of the bathroom, cursing under his breath and wishing that Izaya would just fuck off for a few days. He was just about to lie down when the bastard called again and it took everything in his power to not hurl the phone into the opposite wall. “Didn't you hear me?” he snapped at Izaya after answering the phone since he knew the flea wasn't one to give up so easily.

“I heard you, Shizu-chan. No need to shout into the phone, unless you're purposely trying to damage my eardrums,” Izaya spoke calmly. “Again.”

Shizuo's hand tightened around the phone. “Then why the hell are you still bothering me?”

“I thought you might be interested in going to the place where your brother might've been imprisoned since his capture, but if you're not interested, then I'll talk to you another time. Bye~!”

“No, wait!” Shizuo voiced the desperate request, but by then it was too late. “No, no, no, you bastard, you don't just tell me that and then hang up,” he hissed while dialing the number, but Izaya was no longer picking up so Shizuo threw the phone on the couch, quickly got dressed, locked the door and ran down the stairs. By the time he arrived in front of the building, he was feeling slightly nauseous, not because of the stab wound but because he feared what he might find once he arrived at the place Izaya had mentioned before being a complete dick and refusing to pick up the goddam phone. “Hurry up!” Shizuo kept muttering once in a while as he waited for Izaya to arrive. To his surprise, the flea showed up in a car, driving. “The hell...?”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get in,” Izaya finally said when he realized that Shizuo was too shocked to move.

“Do you even know how to drive?” Shizuo asked, sounding a bit panicky.

“I do have a driver's license...” Izaya informed him while rolling his eyes. “Look, you either stay here or get in. Either way, I'm going, so make up your mind in the next ten seconds if you don't want to be left behind.”

Seeing no other choice, Shizuo reluctantly got in, inwardly cursing Izaya for not getting one of Shiki's men to drive them there. He could only hope that Izaya wouldn't accidentally or intentionally drive them off a cliff.

“Relax, Shizu-chan,” Izaya said when he noticed Shizuo's stiff posture and realized that the beast was scared of riding in the same car with someone who hated his guts. “If I ever decide to kill you, this won't be how I do it. The last thing I want is to die together with you.”

“I'm more worried about you accidentally driving us off a cliff,” Shizuo confessed even as he tried to sit in a more relaxed position.

Izaya chuckled but said nothing. After all, he couldn't blame Shizuo for being afraid of him.

***

Shizuo's nerves had been stretched to their limit by the time they reached the cabin, so he opened the door and got out of the car before the thing even had a chance to come to a full stop. He could tell that Izaya was trying to tell him something, but Shizuo couldn't hear a word over the pounding in his ears as he ran towards the now burned cabin. He made his way through cops and firefighters alike, none strong enough to even slow him down. He started rummaging through the debris, pushing away anyone trying to stop him. At that point, it didn't even matter if Kasuka hated him for the rest of his life and never talked to him again. All Shizuo could hope for was that he wouldn't find his brother's burned corpse amidst the wreckage.

“You idiot, stop it already!” Izaya growled from outside what was left of the cabin, but it was as though Shizuo couldn't hear him; that or perhaps the beast simply did not care. “He's not there, I assure you. The officers here told me that they saw someone going into the forest and that some of their colleagues are already following said person.” Annoyed by the whole thing, he carefully made his way to Shizuo, after getting permission from one of the officers there to try to calm Shizuo down, stopped in front of him, grabbed him by the jaw and forced pale yellow eyes to meet narrowed brown-red ones. “Shizuo,” he hissed the name just as he grabbed brown hair with his other hand, “you're destroying evidence that might help find your brother.”

Izaya's words washed over him like an icy wave and he staggered backwards in shock, not even flinching at the pain he felt when Izaya didn't let go and a few strands of hair were brutally ripped out of their roots. He couldn't believe that he had lost it badly enough to put the investigation in jeopardy, but then he saw what looked like a chain beneath a piece of burned wood and he rushed to it and grabbed it, the nausea he was already feeling intensifying at the thought of his brother having been chained there like an animal.

"Shizu-chan, I'm sure he's fine," Izaya spoke softly as he slowly approached the infuriated beast, but he ended up taking a step backwards when Shizuo growled and crushed the chain like it was nothing, narrowed pale eyes that somehow looked aflame turning to him.

"You're not helping," he hissed right before he turned around and headed into the forest, not even noticing that Ruri and Celty had arrived there as well.

Izaya shook his head and moved to follow, but a soft touch on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks. He turned his head to glower at whoever had touched him, eyes softening moments later when he was met with the sight of the Headless Rider. The psycho killer Hijiribe Ruri was there as well, but he ignored her and instead addressed Celty. "How did you find out about this place?"

"You're not the only one who can find out things," Ruri replied without even sparing him a glance. Instead, her eyes scanned what remained of the cabin, heart aching at the thought of her beloved Yuuhei suffering at the hands of who knew what psycho. "You'd be surprised what people are willing to do for an autograph."

Izaya chuckled lightly. "I'm more surprised about you bribing people for information. I must say, I'm impressed," Izaya admitted before turning his attention back to Celty. "I'll go after Shizu-chan. In the meantime, try to find out who this cabin belongs to. Even you should be able to find out this much."

[Shouldn't I be the one to go after Shizuo?]

"No, I can handle him," Izaya assured her before heading in the direction in which Shizuo had disappeared.

***

Kasuka let our small sounds of pain as he slowly began to wake up, bits and pieces of what had occurred earlier that day coming back to him. The chains rattled as he tried to move, but between being tied up and the pain flaring in his chest from the broken ribs, he didn't manage to do more than twitch on the cold floor. His attempt at escaping by screaming for help when the car had stopped at an intersection ended up badly and now he doubted that he could do anything to defend himself if the bastard finally decided to beat him to death. Both his arms and legs appeared to be in chains, and as if all of that wasn't already bad enough, there was also a metallic collar around his neck, most likely chained to the wall.

He couldn't deny that being Adabashi's prisoner scared him, especially when he remembered the damage the man had done to Shinra, but perhaps getting a few of his limbs broken beat getting raped by Slon. Unless Adabashi was planning to kill him, in which case he would've very much preferred to remain back at the cabin with Slon.

He guessed that he was in some sort of basement, seeing how there was no light coming from anywhere around him. It was also really cold, cold enough to make him shiver even though that was the last thing his broken ribs needed. He honestly did not know how he would be able to get out of there. Adabashi didn't appear to be as smart as Slon, but the man was a lot more vicious and clearly a sadist. Even if he could find a way to escape, he didn't know how far he could get in his state.

Either way, if there was one thing that made him feel better, it was that Slon was probably going crazy trying to figure out what had happened. Adabashi might have been be a psycho sadist, but Slon was an assassin (at least as far as he knew) and after the beatings and the humiliation he'd been forced to endure at the hands of that man, Kasuka hoped that he'd never have to see him again.

With nothing else to do, he just lay there on the floor, trying to think of ways to get out of there even if the chances to do so seemed smaller than back when he was with Slon, until he heard the door open and he moved to a sitting position despite the agonizing pain he was feeling all over his body. The light came on next, and even though it wasn't strong enough to illuminate the whole place, he still ended up squeezing his eyes tightly for merely a second before he forced them open, wanting to get an idea of the room's layout before Adabashi reached the bottom of the stairs.

Sadly, the room appeared to be empty, which meant there was nothing he could use against the psycho bastard throwing him a dirty look before marching up to him, raising his foot and hitting him in the chest, hard enough to make a sound of pain escape his bloodied lips when it made contact with the broken ribs. He didn't even have a chance to recover before another hit followed, and another, some hitting his chest, others his side and some even his head no matter how much he tried to protect himself by raising his arms or trying to curl in on himself. By the time the beating was finally over, Kasuka was having a really hard time holding in his tears. Adabashi then grabbed a fistful of hair and forced him into a sitting position, not even caring that his prisoner could hardly stay conscious after the many hits he'd just received.

“If you take this off, I'll take out your eyes,” the man told him, and that's when Kasuka noticed the long strip of material the sadist was holding in his hand. “Nod if you understand.”

Kasuka reluctantly nodded and remained as still as he could as Adabashi wrapped the material around his eyes and neck several times and then tied it up in such a way that Kasuka doubted he would be able to take it off even if tried. The fear he was already feeling suddenly intensified, as did the feeling of panic he was desperately trying to deny the existence of ever since he'd seen Adabashi walk through the cabin's door, but he still managed to not flinch when the man wrapped bony fingers around his jaw and forced his head up, most likely trying to get a better look at his work. “Aren't you worried about what Slon might do when he finds out that you were the one who took me from that cabin?” Kasuka couldn't help but ask.

“Nah, not if I find out what he wants to know,” Adabashi replied in a calm voice. “After all, you're going to tell me everything.”

“Huh? I don't know what you're talking about,” Kasuka replied to the comment in a surprised tone, putting his acting skills to good use. “Slon is just another obsessed Hanejima Yuuhei fan who wasn't satisfied with only watching my movies.”

Adabashi laughed and released Kasuka's jaw. “Do you think I'm an idiot? I know more than you think I know, like how Slon is obsessed with finding out some truth from Orihara Izaya. It's why he kidnapped you, isn't it?” When he received no reply, he continued. “I knew the guy was obsessed with that Orihara bastard ever since he saved me from your brother.”

“Ah, so that's where you disappeared to. My brother thought Izaya might've arranged to have you killed or something.” All this time Kasuka had been wondering what had happened to Adabashi, but now that he knew the answer, he wished Shizuo had been right and that Izaya had indeed arranged for Adabashi to be killed. After the shit he'd been through, he didn't feel bad for wishing another's man death, especially if said man happened to be Adabashi, the one who had shot his beloved Ruri.

“You know what really pisses me off though?” Adabashi asked as he started pacing, the man's footsteps echoing inside the empty basement. “It's that Slon then went and saved your brother, the same asshole who nearly killed me. Do you know how much pain I had to go though because of that freak, how many months of therapy I had to suffer through?”

Adabashi kept ranting, but Kasuka had stopped hearing what was coming out of the man's mouth around the time he mentioned Slon saving Shizuo. All this time he kept wondering who had saved his brother, and now that he finally knew who it was, he didn't know how to feel about it. On one hand, the man had put him through hell, but on the other hand, that same man was the reason his brother was still alive, even though Shizuo was in a coma and the doctors couldn't tell him if his brother would ever wake up. “Why would he do that?” he asked rhetorically, but it looked like that Adabashi took it as a question meant for him.

“'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' is what he said when I asked him about it. Personally, I think he just didn't want to let Orihara get away with it. Man, he must really hate that guy, huh? Stalker behavior right there, don't you think? Oh wait...” Adabashi then added chuckling as he crouched down in front of his prisoner. “Then again, I can't say I blame him. If you think about it, it was Orihara's fault that I ended up in the hospital. He's the one who lured me to your brother's apartment.”

“Are you going to talk me death, or tell me why I'm here?” Kasuka interrupted him, now more than ever wanting to know why Adabashi would risk an assassin's wrath after barely surviving the last time he'd angered someone.

“I saw an opportunity and I took it,” was Adabashi's simple answer.

“How did you know where he kept me, or that he even had me in the first place? Did he tell you?” Kasuka continued, hoping to find out more about what was going on since Adabashi seemed to be in a chatty mood, but the man must've figured out what he was trying to do because he shut him up with his next words.

“Well, aren't you a bit too curious? You know what they say, 'curiosity killed the cat,'” Adabashi warned as he grabbed a fistful of black hair and shook him a bit before letting go, standing up from his crouched position and heading up the stairs. “Ah, and remember, you take that off, I take out your eyes. Don't say I didn't warn you.”

Finally, the door closed and Kasuka gingerly leaned against the wall behind him, doing his best to avoid further aggravating his wounds. He raised his cuffed hands and slowly touched the blindfold, fingers twitching with the need to take it off even after the warning he'd just gotten. It took him several minutes of trying to figure out how the bastard had tied the damn thing up, but it seemed impossible to put it back on in the exact same way if he somehow managed to take it off. It just didn't seem like it was worth the risk of losing his eyes, especially when the basement was pitch black anyway.

What have I done to deserve this? He couldn't help but bitterly think for like the millionth time since he'd been captured.

***

After catching up to Shizuo, Izaya chose to remain silent since it didn't look like the beast was anywhere close to hearing reason, but after about half an hour of walking through the forest, Izaya finally addressed him. “This is pointless.”

“It beats sitting around doing nothing,” Shizuo growled, the tone in his voice making it clear that it was final and that he would not tolerate the flea talking about it again.

Izaya shook his head and kept following Shizuo, knowing that the bleeding idiot would have to stop sooner or later. Another two hours or so passed and he was sighing loudly, the sounds being followed by angry growls coming from an emotionally hurt beast who would probably not hesitate to break his legs with how angry he was. Luckily, he got a message and he quickly opened it, glad to hear from Celty. Relieved that he finally had something to tell Shizuo, he pocketed the phone and increased his pace to catch up to Shizuo who was walking further ahead, most likely to avoid hearing him sigh.

“I just got a message from Celty.” This seemed to get Shizuo's attention because the beast stopped and turned to him.

“What did she say?” Shizuo asked in a tired voice, hoping that he wasn't about to receive bad news.

“She said that one of the officers managed to pull out a blanket before the room with the boarded windows completely caught fire. They broke in from the outside, hoping to find your brother, but there was no one inside. Either way, we'll know for sure in a couple of days whether or not Kasu-chan was there. They'll do a DNA test on the strands of hair found on the blanket.”

“Good, good,” Shizuo said in a slightly trembling voice before turning away from Izaya and getting back to searching for his brother, whether his brother had ever been there or not.

“Let's go back and wait for the result. We'll then figure out what to do from there. It's better this way, trust me, I know what I'm talking about.”

“Trust you…?" Shizuo asked as he suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to Izaya who was standing somewhere behind him. “You're asking me to trust the man who nearly got my brother raped?”

“This has nothing to do with―”

“Why is it that you always find the places where my brother had been kept instead of the place where he's being kept? Are you even trying?” Shizuo growled the words as he took a few steps in Izaya's direction, making the other man retreat in the face of his fury.

“I am!” Izaya assured him as he took yet another step backwards, not liking the crazed look in Shizuo's eyes. He didn't like to admit even to himself that he was starting to feel scared, but that was exactly what he was feeling when his back hit a tree and Shizuo grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt. He could always stab him if things got out of hand, but somehow Izaya didn't think it would be necessary. Stay calm, Izaya told himself. Surely Shizuo would not hurt him after he'd gotten on his knees and begged for forgiveness. This was merely a wounded beast lashing at someone else because it felt powerless. “I assure you that I am doing everything in my power to find your brother. I made you a promise and I intend to keep it.”

The sincerity in Izaya's voice made Shizuo release him, only now realizing that he was being an asshole to the man he'd broken with his own two hands but who was still willing to help him despite everything. “I'm sorry,” he spoke softly, head lowered in shame. “I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

Izaya righted his T-shirt and shoved cold hands into the pockets of his jacket. “That's okay, Shizu-chan. Now let's go back before you bleed to death,” Izaya said and then placed a hand on the wounded beast's shoulder, but said beast shrug if off.

“Go back if you want. I won't leave this place until I find my brother,” Shizuo said before he started walking again. A few moments later he felt a hand on his shoulder and this time he pushed Izaya away, only realizing the mistake he'd just made when the flea lost his balance, grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him down with him, both of them tumbling down the mountain. The only thing on his mind as he kept going down the slope, with rocks and roots digging into his flesh and scraping it, was that Izaya was getting hurt and that all of it was his fault.

Izaya was the first one to stop as his body hit a tree, the impact knocking the air out of his lungs. The stupid beast whose fault this was soon followed and this time Izaya blacked out when Shizuo's body ran into him and he ended up getting squashed between it and the tree.

***

Izaya woke up sometimes after the sun set, feeling as though he'd been hit by a truck. A beast, he reminded himself when he recalled what had happened before he lost consciousness. Hissing in pain, he opened his eyes and pushed his upper body to a sitting position, surprised to find that he was more or less unharmed.

“Don't move too much,” Shizuo said from somewhere behind him.

Izaya turned his head in the direction the voice was coming from, wondering how badly the beast had been hurt.

“I'm fine. You on the other hand had a dislocated shoulder. I put it back into place while you were out,” Shizuo told him as he went about placing more wood on the dying fire. “I'm sorry about earlier,” he said in a remorseful voice. “Hurting you is the last thing I want.”

Izaya waved a dismissive hand, not in the mood to talk about a stupid accident even if said accident took place because of Shizuo. He was more interested in getting the hell out of there. “Where's my phone?” he asked once he realized that his phone was missing. Shizuo walked up to him and handed him his phone. “It broke on the fall. I found it while gathering wood for the fire.”

“Okay,” Izaya muttered unhappily, “then give me yours to call for help.” Shizuo visibly winced at the request and that's when Izaya knew they were in trouble. “What did you do?” he hissed.

“I left it at home. You weren't answering your phone, so I threw it on the couch, got dressed and then rushed out the door. I'm sorry.”

“How long was I out?” he then asked, brow twitching in annoyance.

“Two or three hours.”

“You idiot, then why didn't you go back to get help?” Izaya snapped since he could tell that his ankle was twisted pretty badly.

“I didn't want to leave you here alone. What if some psycho killer or wild animal got to you while you were out?”

In his anger, Izaya hadn't thought of that, but they were in a forest after all and being left unconscious was indeed a very bad idea. “We can't go back in the dark and you might not make it through the night.”

“I'll be fine,” Shizuo assured him as he sat down.

“No, you won't be. Have you looked at your T-shirt lately? It's soaked with blood.”

“This is nothing,” Shizuo said while zipping up his jacket. “You've had much worse than me.”

“Yeah and I almost died,” Izaya shouted in anger since the memory of him bleeding to death was still too fresh in his mind. “Take off your jacket,” Izaya ordered as he slowly stood up and limped towards Shizuo, switchblade in hand.

“Flea…? Shizuo uttered the nickname, a bit of fear making its way into his voice.

“We're going to have to cauterize the wound so that you won't bleed to death. Now take off your T-shirt; you're going to bite on it.”

Shizuo shook his head. “No.”

“What will your brother think when I finally find him and tell him that you bled to death in the forest while looking for him?” Izaya asked, knowing that he might just scare Shizuo into letting him seal the wound.

He just had to go there, Shizuo thought miserably before he proceeded to take off his jacket and T-shirt. He then handed the bloodied thing to Izaya who cut it up and handed him a piece of rolled up material to bite on. The flea then started working on cleaning the wound as best as he could, all the while waiting in silence for the blade to heat up.

“Lie down. This is going to hurt a lot,” Izaya warned after a while as he moved away from the fire and knelt besides Shizuo who looked more worried about an injury than Izaya had ever seen him before. It made sense though, since the beast had never been burned before as far as he knew. He waited until Shizuo bit down on the cloth before he pushed the blade against skin, Shizuo immediately letting out sounds of agony as the skin sizzled beneath the knife. He pulled it away after a while, not wanting to burn the skin too badly even if it was the beast, and then continued since it didn't look like the bleeding had stopped. It was only after he used the switchblade a third time that the bleeding finally stopped, but by then Shizuo had passed out from either the shock, the pain or the blood loss.

“You're welcome,” Izaya then said as he covered the beast with the jacket and sat down on the ground near the fire.

Now it was his turn to watch over Shizuo, as ironically as that was.

Chapter 81: Hero of the Day

Izaya was in a really bad mood. Not only was he spending the night on a mountain with his archenemy, both of them injured, but it was also literally pouring outside. The fire had gone out a few minutes earlier and all Izaya could do was curl into a tight ball with his back against the tree they had taken shelter under and hope that he wouldn't freeze to death over night regardless of the fact that it was the beginning of spring and not the middle of winter.

What bothered him the most though was the fact that he couldn't find Kasuka. He might've hated Shizuo and even Kasuka to some degree, but his job was to find Hanejima Yuuhei and he was miserably failing at it. Such a thing was eating at his pride as an Informant even though he wasn't a private detective and finding kidnapped people wasn't exactly what he did most of the time. The fact still remained that he'd made a deal with Shizuo, and while the beast was keeping his end of the deal, which was to work for the Awakusu-kai, Izaya was failing to keep his.

As much as Izaya hated to admit, it was as Shizuo had said; he was always too late when it came to finding the place where Kasuka was being held prisoner. It wasn't that he wasn't trying, like Shizuo had accused him of doing, but the kidnapper was just that good. He knew first hand how proficient Kasuka was at fighting and how smart the man was, so for him to not be able to escape by himself meant that the person who had him was no regular obsessed fan. It couldn't be. Unless said obsessed fan happened to be working in the military or law enforcement, which would explain why Kasuka couldn't escape and how the kidnapper had managed to avoid the city cameras so well. Or maybe I'm just just starting to lose my mind, he couldn't help but think as he tightened cold hands around his shivering body.

Unfortunately, not being able to find Kasuka wasn't the only thing bothering him. It also bothered him a lot that he'd stabbed Shizuo, not because the beast didn't deserve it, but because it was unprofessional of him to injure Shiki's employee. If Shizuo was needed while he was injured and Shiki somehow found out it was Izaya's fault that his employee couldn't do his job, then he had no doubts that Shiki would punish him. Said punishment could range from losing his place as the Awakusu-kai's Informant to broken limbs, and he very much preferred to not get any more of his limbs broken.

His eyes drifted over to Shizuo and he envied the beast for having passed out before the rain had started pouring. At least Shizuo wouldn't have to spend the night worrying that some wild animal might bite a chunk of his flesh now that the fire was out.

***

It was around three in the morning when Slon finally arrived to Tokyo after easily escaping the police. Vorona seemed angry even though she wasn't outright showing it, but her anger surely paled in comparison to his. He'd lost Hanejima Yuuhei. After going though the trouble of coming up with a good plan and then kidnapping the actor to finally get the information he so badly needed, he'd lost him. The most troublesome thing however was that Hanejima Yuuhei was still missing, which only made sense if someone else had taken him. The broken lock and chain indicated just that since the actor couldn't have done those things by himself.

As for Vorona, he couldn't tell her why he was hiding things from her. She understood his obsessions with certain things, but he doubted she would understand this, whatever this was.

"Your answer," Vorona spoke, startling Slon who appeared to be deep in thought.

"What? Ah, yes, I'll do it," he replied before retreating back into his mind to try to make sense of what had occurred that afternoon.

Without a word, Vorona stood up and went out to get some much needed fresh air. She used to be able to guess what was going through Slon's head, but ever since that job he worked on with Izaya, the man had changed. She understood wanting to take revenge on someone who had tried to kill you, but what she didn't understand was why Slon had her follow Orihara Izaya or why he had asked her to become Tanaka Tom's bodyguard. She'd been told to gather information about Heiwajima Shizuo, which made no sense since the one who had tried to kill Slon was Orihara Izaya.

Frowning, she put her helmet on, took a seat on the bike and rode into the night, hoping that by the time morning arrived, she'd be less inclined to ask questions that would not get answers anyway.

***

The rain didn't let up the entire night, yet Izaya had still somehow managed to fall asleep. He woke up sometimes after the sun rose, hissing in pain as he tried to stretch his numb and still mostly soaked body. "Shizu-chan," he called in a low voice, as though he had no strength left to speak. "Shizu-chan," he tried again, and this time the beast stirred.

"What?" Shizuo mumbled as he got out from under the jacket Izaya must've covered him with and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. He felt like he'd been hit by a truck and he knew exactly how that felt since he'd actually been hit by one before.

"Oh, nothing. Just checking to see if you were still alive," Izaya revealed with a chuckle before he proceeded to pull up the pants' leg to see how his ankle was doing. Not very good, he thought as his eyes were met with the sight of swollen purple and green skin.

"Yeah, I'm still alive, flea. Sorry to disappoint," Shizuo mumbled in an irritated tone as he too checked his wound. "This is going to scar," he couldn't help but remark when he saw the ugly red and burned skin.

Izaya snorted and stood up with some effort, grunting and making pained noises as his body trembled from the cold and the pain. Nothing might've been broken, but it still felt like he'd been hit by a vending machine. "Since when do you care if a wound scars or not?" Izaya couldn't help but ask since he'd never heard Shizuo complain about one before.

"I don't," Shizuo replied with a growl and bent down to pick up his jacket since it felt as though the cold had seeped into his bones.

"Aww, Shizu-chan is becoming sensitive," Izaya teased with a chuckle as he limped in the beast's direction. Without asking for permission, he grabbed the hem of the T-shirt and pulled it up to inspect the damage himself.

"I'm not becoming sensitive," Shizuo growled and pushed Izaya's hand away. A fraction of a second later his eyes went wide, realizing he'd made a mistake by touching Izaya again without permission. He tensed for the switchblade he assumed might be coming, but Izaya's mocking smile turned into a smirk, as though the flea knew what he was thinking and was enjoying his fear. Abruptly, he tore his eyes away from Izaya's malicious red-brown ones and turned around, telling himself that the shiver he'd just felt running down his spine was actually from the cold.

"Says the beast crying like a baby when I cauterized the wound," Izaya continued since he enjoyed seeing Shizuo squirm in fear and embarrassment. He couldn't see the beast's face, but the way in which those broad shoulders drooped told Izaya that Shizuo was very much ashamed about voicing out his pain. "I was expecting a beast like you to not even flinch, seeing how you've gotten stabbed and shot before but didn't even seem to notice like the idiot that you are."

"That's cause you kept burning me, asshole," Shizuo grumbled and shoved cold fingers into the pockets of his wet jacket. "You should know how that feels," he then added softly, almost inaudibly, but Izaya must've caught it because the insect let out an annoyed 'tch' and seemed to be limping away.

"We've already wasted enough time," Izaya declared as his eyes darted around the place in the hope of finding a path that wouldn't be too difficult to walk on, "so stop sulking and start walking." Pain shot up his leg every time his swollen foot touched the ground, so going down a difficult path would be impossible for him. There was a path that seemed decent enough, even though the slope was a bit too abrupt for his taste, but it would have to do. Sighing, he started limping in its direction, only to stop and turn narrowed eyes in the direction of the beast's still form. "Are you waiting for a special invitation perhaps? Start moving!" Izaya ordered, but the beast's shoulders only drooped further.

"But I still haven't found―"

"No!" Izaya interrupted him, hands balling into fists as he glared murder at the beast. "Don't start with that again. We have to get out of here, now!"

"I can't just leave like this, he's my brother," Shizuo tried again, but a few moments later he ended up letting out a sound of surprise when he was grabbed by the throat and slammed into a tree with surprising strength, red-brown eyes that looked aflame with anger making him shiver harder beneath their intensity.

"You know, Shizu-chan," Izaya started in a dangerous voice as he chocked the beast harder, "I tried to be understanding since I know how much you love Kasu-chan, but there's only so much of your stupidity that I can allow before I decide it's time to step in and make you see reason."

"How can I leave when he might still be somewhere on this mountain?" Shizuo tried to argue, but it didn't look like Izaya was very understanding if the man's snort was anything to go by.

"Even if he was, do you really think you'd be able to find him? Do you know how to track people?"

Shizuo lowered his eyes.

"Of course you don't. The only thing you're good at is breaking things. You have no skills, Shizu-chan, you're useless."

This time Shizuo winced at the truth, feeling more ashamed than he'd felt in a long time.

"You're a waste of space and air," Izaya continued, hoping to drive his point home, "and no matter how much you want to help find your brother, there's nothing you can do about it but wait. I understand that you hate feeling useless, but the sooner you accept it, the faster we can go back to Tokyo and actually work on finding Kasu-chan." Shizuo wasn't saying anything, but Izaya knew he'd won the moment the beast's head fell forward in defeat. He pulled back his hand, not expecting Shizuo to slump to the ground, hands in his now brown hair and looking like he was falling apart.

"W-Why is this happening to him? He doesn't deserve this. He's not a monster like me, he... he's a good person."

Izaya's eyes widened in disbelief. "Shizu-chan, pull yourself together. We don't have time for this right now. We need to get off this mountain and back to Tokyo," Izaya reminded him in a harsh tone as he grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him up, a task which proved to be rather difficult since the beast seemed to have no will or energy left to stand up. Shizuo however was still not moving, so Izaya settled on comforting the idiot since he really wanted to get off that stupid mountain and it didn't look like further insulting him would be a good idea. "Listen," he continued in a much softer voice as he placed a hand on Shizuo's shoulder, "you know Kasuka better than anyone. You know how strong he is. If anyone can get through this, it's him."

Shizuo raised hopeful eyes at Izaya. "Do you really think so?"

"Yeah," Izaya assured him.

"But the chains..." Shizuo continued, once again slumping against the tree.

"It just means that the kidnapper thinks he's dangerous. Kasuka is probably spending every waking moment trying to find a way to... wait, I think I hear something," Izaya said and they both went silent. A few moments later, they heard someone calling Shizuo's name from somewhere on their left.

"We're here!" Izaya shouted and limped in the direction from which the voice was coming, recognizing it as belonging to none other than Hijiribe Ruri. Celty was there as well, and Izaya couldn't have been happier since he knew that the Dullahan would be able to convince the idiotic beast to leave. Then again, perhaps there was no need since Shizuo seemed to be following him.

[Are you two okay? What happened?] Celty typed frantically, all the while hoping that the two of them hadn't gotten into a fight.

Realizing what she must've been thinking, Izaya couldn't help but chuckle. "Courier-san always assumes the worst of us. We're civilized people here, so of course Shizu-chan and I didn't get into a fight. It was an accident, right, Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo nodded awkwardly since he was the one responsible for said accident. "We, uh, kind of fell down."

Celty tilted her head, finding it hard to believe that Shizuo would look so weak after only tumbling down a slope. [Are you sure you're okay?]

"I'm fine Celty, just a little bit cold. I think I'm ready to go back now," he told them in a defeated voice. "Celty, can you please help Izaya? He hurt his ankle." He waited until Celty nodded and offered Izaya her arm before walking past them, no longer in the mood to talk when all he could think about was his brother who probably still thought he was in a coma.

On the way back to civilization, Celty explained to Izaya that her and Ruri had gotten worried when he didn't answer his phone and that both of them decided to go look for them when the police refused to send a search party because it was night. She also told him they now knew who owned the cabin, but that they couldn't get in touch with the owner because the man no longer lived in Japan.

The news were disappointing since Izaya was hoping for a lead on the case, but at least they'd soon know if Kasuka had really been at that cabin or if the information the police had received about the actor being there was nothing more than a prank call. Izaya kind of hoped it was the former, since while he didn't really like Hanejima Yuuhei, he didn't want him dead either; not yet anyway.

***

Kasuka had no idea whether it was night or day. All he knew was that he couldn't fall asleep no matter how tired he was because it hurt that much more to be woken up by a punch or a kick to the face. It was like Adabashi couldn't spend more than a few hours without turning violent and beating him until he got tired or until Kasuka lost consciousness, which was exactly what had happened last time the man decided to pay him a visit. The last thing Kasuka remembered was choking on blood as a fist repeatedly descended on his face, only to wake up minutes or hours later (he had no idea how much time had passed), so weak that he couldn't even raise his head off the floor.

He understood then that he was going to die. He felt it in his heart. Even if Adabashi's intention wasn't to kill him, he'd still die if the man, no, the monster, didn't learn to control himself. He would die in that cold and dark basement and then Adabashi would probably bury him someplace no one could find him. A violent shiver ran down his spine and a sound of hopelessness slipped past cracked and bloody lips.

I don't want to die.

***

It was sometimes during the afternoon, a few hours after arriving in Tokyo, that Shizuo finally checked his phone and saw that Shiki had called him more than once. There was also a message, which he reluctantly opened, telling him to call back as soon as possible because he had a job for him. His first instinct was to put the phone back on the couch and pretend that he hadn't read the message, but messing with the Yakuza didn't sound like a very good idea so in the end he called the man back.

"Heiwajima-san, I thought we agreed that when I call, you answer," Shiki reminded him.

"Sorry about that. The police had a lead on my brother and I went to check it out. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to take the phone with me," Shizuo explained and hoped that the man would understand.

"I see. How did that go?" Shiki asked, sounding genuinely interested.

"I didn't find him," Shizuo answered in a pained voice, "but at least I'll know in a couple of days if my brother was really there."

"I hope you'll find him soon."

"Thank you."

"In the meantime, I need you at Dougen-sama's house," Shiki continued even though he knew that he was being insensitive by asking for Heiwajima Shizuo's help when the man obviously needed some time alone after failing to find his brother. "I'll send a car to pick you up."

"I understand. I'll wait in front of the building," Shizuo told him, knowing that he had no choice in the matter. Well, none that would end well. Besides, it beat staying home and thinking about a chained and hurt Kasuka, the image of his little brother like that almost bringing tears to his eyes.

***

Shizuo was hoping not to run into Akane at her grandfather house since he doubted he could pretend to be in a good mood when he most certainly wasn't, but luckily Awakusu Dougen had sent her away for a few days until his men dealt with the threat. It turns out they had information about someone ordering a hit on their leader, which was why Shiki had demanded his presence even though the man must've guessed that it wasn't a very good time for him. Missing brother aside, Shiki couldn't have known that Shizuo wasn't at his best after getting stabbed, burned, and on top of that, forced to spend the night outside in the rain. However, if it came down to it, Shizuo had no doubts that he could handle any threat. It wasn't like there were many people out there who could go up against him and actually prove to be a challenge, so even in his weakened state, Shizuo wasn't too worried about anyone getting past him.

Sighing softly, he reclined with his back against the wall, suddenly starting to feel sleepy since he'd been there for a few hours already and the sun had already set. He and another man were guarding the door leading to the bedroom belonging to Awakusu Dougen while the rest were scattered all over the mansion, but that still didn't mean he could afford to take a nap when the assassin could attack at any moment. With that thought in mind, he shook his head and ran a hand over his face. He was just about to start pacing the hallway when the door to the bedroom opened and Awakusu Dougen invited him inside for a cup of tea.

Not seeing any reason to refuse, especially since he suspected that he was coming down with a cold and the tea seemed like a good idea, he walked into the large bedroom and sat down at the small coffee table while the man poured him tea.

"Thanks," Shizuo said before he picked up the small cup and took a sip of hot tea.

"I heard some wild tales about you," Dougen told him after taking a sip as well.

"I don't know what you've heard about me, but if it's about my strength, they're not tales," Shizuo corrected him as he stared at the cup in his hands, wondering where the man was going with this.

"I'm glad to hear that. I'd ask you to give me a show of your strength, but you don't look so good. Are you not feeling well because of your brother?" Dougen inquired even though he knew that his question might upset the man.

Shizuo raised his head, surprised that the Yakuza leader would ask him about Kasuka. If anything, Shizuo assumed Dougen thought this new bodyguard Shiki had brought was some nobody with remarkable strength.

"I'm Ruri-san's fan," the man revealed with a small smile which disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. "It's why I asked Shiki-san to talk to Gorudendoragon's head in Gifu and see if he can find out anything about Ruri-san's boyfriend. He's also a fan and we both want her to be happy."

For a few seconds, Shizuo was stunned by what he'd heard, until he came back to his senses and found his voice. "Thank you for trying to find my―"

The sounds of shots being fired came from outside the building and they both jumped to their feet, Awakusu Dougen drawing his katana while Shizuo balled his hands into fists and placed himself between the door and the man he was supposed to protect. They waited like that for a few minutes, until they heard a loud thud outside the door and they both assumed a fighting stance. The door swung open a few moments later and a man covered in bandages and holding a gun rushed in, gun pointed in the direction of Awakusu Dougen. Shizuo didn't have time to think. His body reacted on its own and he jumped in front of the gun, the bullet hitting his shoulder instead of Awakusu Dougen's head.

Pain bloomed where the bullet embedded itself into the bone but he ignored it and rushed forward, raising a fist to punch the man in the rib cage while the assassin somehow ended up targeting the exact same spot in which Izaya had stabbed him. Shizuo let out a groan as the man's fist connected with the burned skin but he didn't stop and swung his fist again, this time successfully breaking the man's forearm when his opponent made the mistake of thinking that he could block a punch delivered by a monster. The gun fell to the floor with a loud clank, but the assassin was by no means a weakling who couldn't do anything without one, something Shizuo learned when the man punched him in the face hard enough to break his nose.

He should've been pissed, but Shizuo actually smirked at the man even as the blood started flowing down his nose. "You're pretty strong," he complimented the other just as he raised his foot and kicked him in the stomach, the assassin flying through the air before finally stopping as he hit the wall, "but I'm stronger." Thinking that he'd knocked him out, Shizuo approached the assassin with the intention of tearing off the man's bandages, but said man lunged at him like a bull, the unexpected action sending Shizuo falling backwards and right into Awakusu Dougen who luckily didn't accidentally cut him with the katana. The assassin then rushed out and Shizuo tried to follow, but halfway across the hallway everything started to spin around him and he had no choice but to stop and lean against the wall since last time he'd been shot he ended up falling face first into concrete, something he wished to avoid if possible. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be enough, and the last thing he saw before sliding down the wall and blacking out was Awakusu Dougen's worried face as the man rushed to him.

***

Izaya had just finished sending an email to a client when his phone rang and he answered it even though he'd had a very long day and Shiki was the last person he wanted to talk to. "Shiki-san, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?" he faked a sweet voice even though he knew that Shiki would probably guess that he was not in the mood to talk to him.

"I merely wanted to ask you to stop stabbing my employees."

"I have no idea what Shiki-san is referring to," Izaya replied in an innocent voice even as he gripped the phone tighter.

"You've been warned," Shiki said before ending the call.

"Tch!" Izaya exclaimed in annoyance as he placed the phone back on the desk. Shiki found out, just as Izaya had feared, and now the man was angry at him as though Izaya had really hurt one of his men even though Shizuo was only temporarily working for him.

The phone rang again and Izaya picked it up and glared at the screen for only a second before placing it back on the desk. He had enough things on his mind already and he definitely did not need that Ayato kid to annoy him with whatever it was the little sadist wanted from him.

He really should've thought better before making Shizuo work for the Awakusu-kai.

Chapter 82: Painful Loss

It was sometimes around seven in the morning when Vorona finally managed to convince Slon to let a doctor have a look at him. He'd kept insisting the entire night that he was fine, that he wasn't feeling as bad as he looked and that he didn't need a doctor. His reassurances seemed to have worked, that is until the pain got so bad that he couldn't suppress a sound of agony when one of his broken ribs shifted the wrong way and it felt as though he had a knife stuck in his chest.

Slon had fought strong men before, but none of them came even close to Yuuhei's brother. He now regretted saving the man's life. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but making Izaya's life harder was not worth nearly getting himself killed. He now understood why people called Heiwajima Shizuo a monster and why the man owned the title of Ikebukuro's strongest. The safest thing to do would be to put a bullet through the man's head, but he'd made a deal with Adabashi Kisuke, another one of Izaya's many victims and the second and last one he'd saved, and Slon didn't want to kill him after Adabashi made him promise to leave that honor to him. The man had also wanted Izaya, but Slon had made it clear that he would be the one to end the Informant's life.

Heiwajima Shizuo should've stayed dead, Slon thought as he tried to remain as still as possible while the underground doctor put his arm into a cast. As for the actor, if no one had taken him, Slon couldn't blame him if the man decided to run to a far away place and never come back, not after all the things he'd done to him. After all, Hanejima Yuuhei had the terrible luck of getting caught in the middle of a fight between monsters.

Either way, as much as Slon wanted to go out there, finish the job he'd been hired to do and then look for his missing prisoner, he doubted he would be able to do much during the next few days. It looked like he had no choice but to get some rest. Hopefully, Vorona would be able to reassure their employer that Awakusu Dougen would still die.

***

Izaya was just thinking of ordering some lunch when he heard the doorbell and he got up and slowly made his way to the door, hissing each time pain shot up his leg whenever he put too much pressure on it. His bruised ribs were protesting as well, but the pain in his ankle was bad enough to distract him from everything else. Cursing under his breath, he opened the door and blinked in surprise, not expecting to see Mori Ken standing outside, the man giving him the worried look of a parent needing to know if his child was alright. Izaya was taken aback by the unexpected visit, but after a few moments of gaping, he managed to find his voice and address him. "Mori-san, it's good to see you. Please come in," he said and then made his way to the couch, trying his best not to show that he was in pain. "Please, take a seat." After Mori Ken took the invitation, Izaya continued. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"There are two reasons actually, but the main one is that two days ago I was on my way home after buying groceries when I saw a man dragging you out of a restaurant. I tried to catch up, but you two disappeared before I could. I was worried that something bad might've happened to you, so I started asking around and it turns out that a lot of people know you in Ikebukuro. I also found out that the man who was dragging you away was Heiwajima Shizuo, your archenemy, as people have called him, and also the man the police questioned me about when they came to me a few months back."

"So you came here to see if I was alright?" Izaya asked, surprised that someone he didn't even know very well would care enough to check if he was alright.

The man nodded. "You don't look too well."

Izaya knew that he looked terrible, especially since he had a few scratches on his face from when he'd tumbled down, but for once he hadn't been in a fight. "Ah, no, this," Izaya said as he pointed to his ankle, "is an entirely different matter. I went to the mountain area following a lead on a case I'm working on and there was an accident. I fell down and twisted my ankle, but I'm fine," he assured him with a smile.

"I see. I'm glad to hear that. My mind is finally at ease," Mori Ken confessed since the young man before him was someone he enjoyed talking to, and even though he didn't know him very well, he still didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

"I'm sorry to have made you worry."

"Not your fault. Forgive me for intruding on you."

"It's okay, Mori-san, I enjoy your company, so you're welcome here any time," Izaya assured him. "Though it'd be best to call before you visit, in case I'm in a meeting with a client," he added as an afterthought.

"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind," the man told him, eyes glued to the coffee table where a combination of Chess, Othello and Shogi pieces were set on a Go board. It didn't really make any sense, but it was still beautifully arranged.

"Interested?" Izaya asked, smile widening. There was just something fascinating about watching people try to figure out what he was doing with all those pieces.

"Interested? Yes. Thinking I might be able to understand? No, not really," the man admitted honestly.

"How come?" Izaya couldn't help but ask, his expression one of genuine curiosity since most people would ask him to explain instead of giving up before even trying.

"It's like a piece of art or a poem. Only the creator knows its true meaning."

"Ah, I see. That makes senses, but anyway, I'm really curious about the second reason why you came to visit me, Mori-san," Izaya reminded him, eyes glued to the file the man was holding in his right hand.

With a pained look on his face, Mori Ken took a deep breath and started telling the man he now knew was an Informant what happened the day his life changed. "I'm an architect, or at least I was. I was working out of town on a new building, like I sometimes did, when my wife and son came to visit me."

The man had only just started, but Izaya had a feeling that the story wouldn't end well.

"We had a great weekend. Our son was so happy, finally spending some time with his father, while my wife was relieved that we didn't end up fighting again like we often did over me spending so much time away from home. You see, I wanted to give them the best life I could possible give them, so I thought that making more money and buying a bigger house would be a step forward towards accomplishing that goal. I realized later on, at the morgue, as I stood next to their lifeless bodies, that the only thing they ever wanted was for me to be there for them," Mori Ken said in a trembling voice, the haunting image of his dead family feeling as vivid as though he was back in that morgue, falling down on his knees and crying like a child. "I wasn't there when they needed me. I failed them."

"What happened, Mori-san?" Izaya asked after a long pause, hoping that the man would continue regardless of how painful the story was. Mori Ken had always been nice to him, and if there was anything he could do to help the man, Izaya would not hesitate to do it. He always told himself that he didn't love his sisters more than he loved any other human, but the truth was that he couldn't imagine what it'd be like to see them dead. He didn't want to see them dead, no matter how much they annoyed him at times."Mori-san...? he spoke the name softly, realizing that the man was caught in the memory and that he needed to get out of it.

"I'm sorry," he apologized and rubbed at his eyes since he could feel the tears starting to form. Even after twenty-three years, the pain hasn't lessened. "They said my wife lost control of the car and ran into a truck coming towards her from the opposite lane, but the truck driver swore he saw a car bump into her from behind moments before she ran into him. He even gave a description of it, but the police never investigated it and the truck driver disappeared soon afterwards."

Izaya raised his hand and waited for the man to hand him the file. He skimmed through it for a few minutes before closing it and looking at him again. "You're thinking that one of the men she put behind bars as a Prosecutor either killed her or paid someone to kill her," Izaya shared his theory, to which Mori Ken nodded. "This might take a while," Izaya warned him since he knew that digging out information from more than twenty years ago would be much harder than finding out things about current investigations. "My main concern right now is finding Hanejima Yuuhei, but I'll do my best to solve your wife and son's murder as well, if that's what it is."

"Hanejima Yuuhei? The actor?" Mori Ken couldn't help but ask. He'd heard on the news about the man having been kidnapped, but he was surprised to find out that his Chess partner was trying to find him. "Do you know him or...?"

"I've known him for many years, but we're not close. He's my archenemy's brother after all," Izaya revealed as he placed the file on the coffee table.

"You must be a very kind person, Orihara-san, to help your enemy."

"I really am not, but this is not about saving Shizuo's brother. This is about saving Kasuka," Izaya confessed since he felt comfortable talking to the man before him.

"Kasuka?" Mori Ken asked in confusion.

"Yuuhei," Izaya corrected himself. Of course most people wouldn't know his name if they weren't interested in the actor's personal life. "To be honest, I don't really like him. Actually, I think I hate him quite a lot, but he saved my life twice and I hate being indebted to him."

"I see," Mori Ken then spoke, a soft sigh leaving his lips. "I waited twenty-three years, I can wait a few more months or even years if need be. Finding the man who saved your life, not once, but twice is something you need to do in order to repay your debt. You're an honorable man, Orihara-san," the older man concluded with a smile.

I really am not, Izaya thought, but what he actually said was, "Thank you, Mori-san."

"No, thank you," the man said as he stood up. "About the payment..."

"Don't worry about it, Mori-san," Izaya assured him once he stood up as well. "We're friends after all."

"I can't do that, Orihara-san. I will pay you."

"As you wish," Izaya conceded, knowing that arguing with the man would get him nowhere. He then led him to the door and went back to studying the file, hoping to find something that would give him an idea where to start.

***

Izaya couldn't say he was surprised to hear that Shiki hadn't told him about Shizuo getting shot. Why would he? The man knew that the two of them hated each other's guts. He ended up finding out from Iwasaki sometimes after midnight that someone had tried to kill Awakusu Dougen and that Ikebukuro's strongest had saved the man's life. He tried to remain calm afterwards, but it was hard to do so knowing that Shizuo was now probably Dougen's new favorite person.

No matter, he told himself as he paced the living room, frowning and playing with his switchblade. He knew the Yakuza, which meant that sooner or later, Shizuo would have no choice but to do something he wouldn't want to do, and that was enough to bring a small smile to Izaya's face. Meanwhile, he figured it was best to keep himself occupied with Mori Ken's case while he waited for the DNA results on the strands of hair found at the cabin.

He was about to take another step when he stopped abruptly, Yuigadokusonmaru now blocking his path. "What's wrong?" he asked the meowing cat as he lowered himself to a crouching position and picked up the adorable ball of fur. Kasuka's cat yawned and Izaya took it in his arms, smiling. "You're right, we should probably get some sleep," he told the cat as he made his way upstairs and collapsed on the bed, too tired to even shower before going to sleep.

Sadly, he didn't get a chance to get much sleep since he was woken up a few hours later by the sound of his phone ringing. He groaned as he rolled over and picked it up from the nightstand, careful not to squash the cat sleeping on the bed as well. Iwasaki's voice seemed too loud in his ear even though the man sounded just a tired as Izaya himself was, but at least he hadn't woken him up for no reason. The DNA results had just come in and they turned out to be positive, which meant that Kasuka had truly been at that cabin. He thanked the man, ended the call and lay back down on the bed for a while longer, staring at the dark ceiling and trying to figure out how he felt about what he'd just found out.

On one hand, he felt satisfaction knowing that Kasuka was going through something terrible, but on the other hand he felt that he owed the emotionless bastard something after being saved by him twice, once after Shizuo had raped him and the other after Ruri had tried to kill him. Besides the mean words the bastard had uttered the same night he'd bought him a bun and offered it to him, a gesture that not many had shown him before, Kasuka had mostly been nice to him, even if the freak had no reason to do so.

Either way, he couldn't sleep anymore, so he got up, showered, prepared some food, ate, sent a text to Shizuo's phone and then headed in the direction of the hospital, wanting to personally see the look on the beast's face when he told him that the one who'd been chained in that cabin like an animal was none other than his precious little brother. The look on Shizuo's face would be nowhere near enough to wash away his pain, but the truth was that he'd never expected Shizuo to come back to life and as such he no longer knew what to do besides finding Kasuka so that Shizuo would owe him his brother life. He thought that making him work for the Yakuza would hurt Shizuo, but the damn beast was pretty much working his way up the ranks without even trying to.

He could always break Shizuo the same way the beast had broken him, but somehow the mere thought of ordering such a thing made him sick to his stomach. It wasn't that he didn't think Shizuo deserved it, but Izaya didn't want to become the same type of monster Shizuo had become after that night. As much as he hated that his plan with Slon and Kasuka had failed, he felt better knowing that in the end, he was better than Shizuo.

Sighing in annoyance, he turned his head and glared at the person who had just bumped into him a bit too hard. He hated subways in the morning. It was the time when most people went to work and at such they were always full. Should've taken a cab, he thought moment before he felt a needle sink into his neck and he fell into unconsciousness.

***

The first thing that registered in his mind before he could even open his eyes was the disgusting coppery smell of blood. It took him back to a rainy day where it felt as though he was drowning in his own blood as he lay broken in that alley, wondering if he'd ever be able to put himself back together again after being broken into too many pieces by a brute with inhuman strength. Even so, he managed to not lose himself in the memory. Instead, he slowly opened eyelids as heavy as led and blinked a few times, trying to clear the blurry image.

"He's awake," he heard someone say and he turned in the direction of the voice, immediately recognizing the man's face as belonging to a man called Kira, Yamashita Rikuto's brother.

Next a chair creaked and he turned his attention to the person Kira addressed, an old man slowly standing up and making his way to him, the way in which he dragged the cane across the floor reminding Izaya too much of Akabayashi. He immediately proceeded to test the ropes wrapped around his wrists, but they were bound too tightly and he couldn't free himself without the use of a sharp object. The fact that his ankles were bound as well only made an already bad situation worse.

"Do you know what this is about?" the man asked.

Izaya nodded, trying to appear calm. He wasn't exactly panicking, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to get out of there unharmed. Then again, after the hell Shizuo had put him through, a beating barely phased him anymore. The old man struck him in the head with the cane all of a sudden and Izaya hissed and glared up at his attacker, but not without giving him a nasty smirk as well, letting him know that he'd been through worse.

"I see," the old man mused as he lowered the cane.

"Let me at him, gramps!" Kira hissed, barely holding himself back from brutally murdering Orihara Izaya right then and there.

"Not yet," the old man told Kira before turning to two of the other three men in the room. "Bring him."

Izaya's eyes moved to the door and he waited, heart speeding up when the two men came back, dragging a bloody and beaten person who barely looked alive. Izaya didn't recognize him at first, that is until they dropped him right at his feet and the man's, no, the kid's bloody face came into view.

"Ayato," Izaya gasped in shock at the barely alive kid who had helped him back when he'd been caught by Kira's men. Ayato let out a weak sound of pain and his eyes met Izaya's for only a second before bloodshot eyes rolled in the back of his head and he passed out. "What does he have to do with any of this?" Izaya continued in a calm and indifferent voice, knowing that if he showed any sign that he cared, they'd only hurt the kid more. He might not have known him well, but Ayato had saved him once and even helped him reach a well guarded comatose Shizuo, and as such, Izaya very much preferred the kid leave that place in one piece.

"Besides putting some of my friends in the hospital?" Kira snarled and kicked an unconscious Ayato so hard that the lithe body bumped into Izaya.

"That's enough, Kira," the old man said as he placed a bony hand on his nephew's shoulder and steered him out of the room, but not before warning his prisoner that this was only the beginning.

***

Five hours had passed since Shizuo received Izaya's message and the flea was still not there. Izaya had told him that he had the DNA results and that he was on his way to the hospital, but the bastard had never made it and Shizuo was certain that the flea was once again messing with him. "Goddam flea," he muttered under his breath as he picked up the clothes Sakamoto had left on the chair next to his hospital bed and got dressed. He then pocketed his phone and opened the door, brow twitching in annoyance when two Awakusu-kai members stopped him from leaving, telling him that their leader had asked them to guard him.

"I don't need anyone," Shizuo growled, hoping to get his message across, but the men seemed more scared of Awakusu Dougen than they were scared of him. "How troublesome," he muttered under his breath and lit up a cigarette as he made his way out of the hospital, the men following after him like loyal dogs. The whole thing was stupid since he didn't need anyone to protect him, even if he'd gotten both stabbed and shot in less than three days. Either was, he was in no way walking around Tokyo with Awakusu-kai members guarding him, so he broke into a sprint as soon as he was out the gate and lost them both in less than five minutes. All those years chasing Izaya around had clearly made him faster than regular humans.

He then headed towards Izaya's apartment, not expecting to find Namie there all by herself. "Where's the f― I mean, where's Izaya?"

Namie shrugged and headed back to her desk, clearly not finding him important enough to do more than open the door for him.

Shizuo didn't wait for an invitation and instead sat down on the couch, mind set on waiting for Izaya until the flea got back home.

Chapter 83: Different Perspective

Izaya didn't know for how long he'd been trying to free his hands, but he gave up when the skin around his wrists broke and blood started running down his fingers. The room they were in had iron bars at the window and a metal door, those two things making him wonder if the old man had been planning this for a while. It certainly didn't look like something he could get done in a day or two. Cursing under his breath, he leaned against the wall and looked at Ayato once again, frowning. The kid had cuts on his arms, chest and even face, lots of bruises as well as cigarette burn marks. He never imagined that a simple job he'd done for Shiki would one day put his life in danger. And he was in danger, because judging by the state Ayato was in, their captors weren't planning on letting either of them go. He should've known better than to underestimate humans and their hatred.

Ayato cracked an eye open all of a sudden, startling Izaya who jerked in surprise and hit the back of his head against the wall. "Hey..." he uttered awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.

"Y-You didn't a-answer," Ayato struggled to speak, jaw aching badly after the many punches he'd received.

Izaya's eyes widened further, now remembering the call he'd gotten the day before. "I couldn't have know that―"

"You c-coulda found me s-sooner," Ayato hissed, his expression similar to that of someone who felt betrayed.

"Don't worry, we'll get out of here," Izaya rushed to promise, hoping to shut him up. He almost felt relief when the door opened a few moments later since it meant that he wouldn't have to talk to Ayato anymore, but the little whimper that escaped the kid's bloody lips as they dragged him out of there made Izaya wish he'd never met the little sadist, even if that meant he wouldn't have been saved the first time Rikuto's brother had tried to capture him.

Over the course of the next several hours, Izaya could do nothing but try to block out the sounds of Ayato screaming as they tortured him, some of the men laughing hard enough to create a horrid symphony of human cruelty. This wasn't about Ayato. The whole point of it was to scare Izaya to death so by the time they finally started on him, he'd beg for mercy. Little did they know that he'd been through worse. He thanked the gods he didn't even believe in when the sounds finally stopped, but a shocked gasp escaped him when they brought Ayato back, more cuts, bruises and burn marks covering the already injured body.

"I should've answered the phone." The words left Izaya's mouth before he even realized what he was saying. He wanted to take them back, but it was too late and the kid was now looking at him with big wide eyes, the suffering in them so genuine that Izaya found himself looking away. He immediately berated himself for admitting to a mistake, very much aware that none of it was his fault. Ayato had helped him in the past by his own volition and the ones hurting the kid were the monsters outside. Not my fault, Izaya told himself once again. Still, he couldn't deny that Ayato was now being tortured because the kid had the misfortune of running into him and deciding to help him instead of running away.

"I don't want to d-die," Ayato uttered in a trembling voice, sounding exhausted, but this time Izaya couldn't bring himself to lie that everything would be alright.

***

"Can you call him again?" Shizuo asked Namie who let out a sound of frustration and looked like she was just about ready to murder him.

"I already told you, his phone is off," Namie snapped.

"I know, but maybe it's on now," Shizuo continued in a lower voice, wincing a moment later when Namie abruptly stood up and made his way to him.

"Get out!" she ordered as she pointed to the door.

Shizuo swallowed nervously and hurried out of the apartment, Namie shutting the door so quickly that he ended up stumbling and almost falling down on the floor of the hallway. Luckily, he managed to regain his footing just in time, most likely as a result of the too many years of parkour he'd been forced to learn in order to catch the elusive flea. Irritated that he couldn't find Izaya, he thought about calling the police and finding out the results of the DNA test himself, but he couldn't bring himself to make the call, not when he knew that no matter what the results were, it still wouldn't help him find Kasuka.

Sighing in frustration, he walked out of the building and lit up a cigarette, wondering where Izaya had disappeared to. The flea would never miss an opportunity to see him suffer, so it was strange for the man to disappear after letting him know that he was on the way to the hospital. Shizuo's expression morphed from one of annoyance to one of worry, the idea that the flea was in trouble taking root in his mind and refusing to leave. If someone had targeted the Awakusu-kai's leader, then perhaps they had also targeted the group's Informant. Frown deepening, he fished his phone from inside the pocket of his pants and speed-dialed Kadota. The man was most likely still upset at him for helping Izaya take revenge on Erika, but the situation was urgent and Shizuo didn't know who else to call.

"Sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find Izaya and I was wondering if―"

"What are you two, like best buddies now?" Kadota asked, sounding irritated since he'd been the one who had to deal with a moody Erika ever since Izaya had burned her precious manga volumes.

"As I was saying, I'm looking for someone who might be able to help me find Izaya," Shizuo continued, completely ignoring Kadota's question. "The flea was supposed to meet me hours ago but he didn't show up and now his phone is off."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to you."

"Look, I'm sorry about the whole manga burning thing, but what she did really upset Izaya."

"And you guys really upset her. What were you thinking, chasing her around and scaring her half to death?"

"I'm sorry about that, okay?"

Kadota didn't reply right away, but when he did, it was clear that he'd dropped the Erika subject, at least for the time being. "What do you need?"

"There's this guy Izaya knows, a hacker. I think he might be able to help me find the flea. I think his name is Ishi or something like that."

"Onishi?"

"Yeah, that."

"I'll text you the number," Kadota promised before ending the call and sending Shizuo what he needed, all the while wondering what the hell was up with Shizuo and Izaya acting like they were frenemies or something.

***

Celty collapsed on the couch as soon as she reached it. [I'm beat,] she told Ruri who sat down as well, both of them exhausted after spending almost two days trying and then miserably failing to find the owner of the burned down cabin.

"I am too," Ruri admitted, "but at least now we know for a fact that Yuuhei had been there." Though it pained her to know that the most precious person in her life had been chained and probably hurt in that cabin, she was glad to know that he was still alive. It was more than she could hope for given the situation. She'd been told that most victims ended up dead soon after being kidnapped, but she'd kept hoping this whole time that her Yuuhei was alive and now she knew that whoever had him was not in a hurry to kill him.

[Aren't you going to open those?] Celty asked, pointing to the gifts lying on the coffee table.

Ruri gave them a quick glance before her eyes settled once again on the black smoke coming out of Celty's neck. Even for someone like her, who was a monster, Celty was an extremely fascinating creature. "Later," she told he Dullahan, but the small box in the shape of a black rose caught her attention.

[Okay, then I'll let you get some rest,] Celty told her before standing up and heading for the door. She could tell that her friend needed some time to gather her thoughts after finding out that Kasuka had been a prisoner in that cabin.

Meanwhile, Ruri grabbed the box and opened it, the thing falling from her hands moments later when her eyes fell on what was inside it. She immediately proceeded to get down on her knees on the floor and pick up the fallen objects, only realizing that Celty had come back when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

[Are you okay?] Celty asked when she noticed how pale Ruri had suddenly gotten. [What's wrong?]

"Nothing, nothing," Ruri assured her. "I'll be fine once I eat something and get some sleep."

[Are you sure?]

"I'm sure. Go home. I bet Kishitani-san misses you and is waiting for you."

[Call me if you need anything.]

"I will," Ruri promised, the sinking feeling in her stomach getting worse by the second.

She waited until Celty was out the door before looking under the coffee table and then under the couch, the nausea intensifying when she caught sight of the bloody nail she'd found inside the ring box.

"No," she uttered in denial as she picked up the nail and looked at it more carefully, hoping that she'd been wrong and that it was not Yuuhei's nail. Unfortunately, it was. She didn't need a DNA test to confirm it, not after the many times her and Yuuhei's fingers had interlaced in a loving gesture. Her eyes then settled on the piece of paper which had fallen from inside the box and she picked it up after placing Yuuhei's nail back into the rose-shaped object, slowly unfolding it and then taking a deep breath before reading it.

 

---

 

You looked sad last time I saw you on TV, so I sent you a piece of your boyfriend to let you know that he's still alive.

Hopefully it will cheer you up.

PS: If you tell anyone about this, I will know, and then I'll have no choice but to send you his finger, the one missing its nail.

PPS: You looked beautiful in that black dress.

 

---

 

 

The paper slipped from her fingers and she leaned against the couch, eyes transfixed on the nail inside the box lying on the floor. She'd seen blood before, had even ripped men to shreds, and yet the sight of that bloody nail looked more terrifying than anything she'd ever seen before because it belonged to someone she didn't want to lose.

***

The next time they came into the room, Ayato's whole body froze, eyes full of fear glued to the burly man Izaya finally recognized as working for the Blood Hounds, one of the many organized crime groups around Tokyo. The group posed a big threat to the Awakusu-kai because of the leader's aggressive tactics when it came to enemies. As irony has it, the leader of the group was Sakamoto's uncle, the man taking up the position after murdering the previous head. No one could prove it, but the rumors were enough to scare the weak of heart.

"Bear," the nickname came out of Izaya's mouth just as the man started dragging Ayato out of the room.

"You finally remembered me," the much bigger man said as he dropped Ayato and turned to Izaya, his malicious grin revealing crooked teeth. "It's a shame that you and your friends got away that day."

Izaya chuckled. "All thanks to your boss' nephew." It was then when they found out that most of Sakamoto's family were criminals and that the guy hadn't shown up at school that day because he'd overheard his uncle talking to his father about catching some kid called Orihara Izaya to teach him a lesson. He'd begged them not to do it, which in turn led to his father and uncle locking him up in his room so that he couldn't warn his friend. Sakamoto however managed to get out somehow and then found them just as they were about to get caught. They hid until the vans drove away and then ran straight to Kadota's place because he lived closest to the school. They still ended up fighting a few Blood Hounds members on their way to safety, but in the end, Sakamoto had saved their asses and for that Shizuo, Kadota, Shinra and Izaya himself would be forever grateful.

"How's your little friend with glasses?" Bear asked as he placed a meaty paw on Izaya's shoulder and pulled him up to his feet. "The things I was planning to do to him..."

The disturbing smirk plastered over the man's face almost sent a shiver down Izaya's spine, mostly because the idea of this monster hurting Shinra was too much to bear.

"Stop talking and bring them here already," the old man ordered from the small hallway.

"We'll continue this later," Bear promised and tightened his grip on Izaya's shoulder until he was rewarded with a pained hiss. He then dragged him into another room and tied him to a chair, one of the other men holding a trembling Ayato on his knees by the hair.

"So you two know each other?" the old man asked as he pressed the tip of his cane into Izaya's stomach.

"Yeah, our former boss wanted to teach him a lesson, but this guy managed to get away with his friends and afterwards a deal was made with the Awakusu-kai to spare his sorry life," Bear answered. The last word was followed by the sound of his fist crashing into Ayato's already bloody face.

"I see." The Yamashita elder then pulled back his cane and turned to the two men towering over their other prisoner. "I don't need him anymore, so one of you take him out and kill him."

"I'll do it," Bear offered enthusiastically.

The old man's order hit Izaya so hard that he couldn't even find his voice until Bear started dragging Ayato in the direction of the door, the kid shouting about how he was going to come back as a ghost and murder them all, slowly and painfully.

"What the hell?" Izaya snapped. "He's done nothing to you! He never even met your nephew!" His eyes locked with Ayato's and Izaya felt like he couldn't breathe anymore when he saw the despair in them.

"I don't care," the old man made it clear to the bastard who had helped the Awakusu-kai find his beloved nephew. "Rikuto wasn't perfect, but he was my daughter's son and I loved him."

"He's just a kid!" Izaya shouted, now struggling even though he was very much aware that he couldn't free himself.

"Do you even know what they did to him?"

Izaya's expression morphed into one of pure rage. "I don't care!" he growled the old man's words back at him, baring his teeth at the monster before him. "Your nephew was an idiot for trying to steal from the Yakuza and on top of that stabbing a man." Kira's fist connected with his face a moment later and he hissed when his lip split from the force of the impact.

"They tortured him for hours before they finally killed him," Kira growled and punched Izaya again, much harder than before. "Then they threw him into the Tokyo River, like he was nothing. Like he was garbage."

"Don't kill him," Kira's grandfather told him and waited for his nephew to nod before walking out of the room and closing the door behind him. He knew that Kira needed a few minutes alone with one of the people responsible for his brother's death and he was going to give him that.

"Don't worry," Kira promised Izaya even as he flicked open the switchblade he'd taken from his prisoner. "I won't kill you, not yet anyway. I'm only going to punch and cut you a bit, then Bear can take over for me while I go eat something. Then, later tonight, if everything goes according to plan, Shiki Haruya will join you."

Izaya snorted. "You will never get to him." Kira's insane smirk however told him that he might just be wrong about that. With all the chaos surrounding Dougen's assassination attempt, everyone would be too busy watching over the old man to worry about anyone trying to kidnap one of their members. "Was the assassination attempt just a diversion to get Shiki Haruya?"

Kira chuckled darkly. "Sakamoto-san really wanted that old man dead, but the whole thing somehow ended in failure." He leaned forward and pressed the tip of the switchblade into Izaya's shoulder, earning a hiss from his prisoner. "You know, I went to Awakusu Dougen's house with my brother once. I saw where the rooms and hallways were, some of them anyway. After we first failed to get you, I was so angry that I was just about ready to march into that house and put a bullet into whoever I could find, even if that meant I got killed in the process, but gramps suggested we try to make a deal with the Blood Hounds' leader. I told them everything I could remember about the house and the guards and he gave me some of his men to get you and Shiki while he went for the old man."

I need to get out of here, Izaya thought in a panic a moment later when he heard a scream from somewhere outside the building. He couldn't let them kill Ayato and he couldn't allow himself to be killed. He lowered his head and sunk his teeth so fast into Kira's wrist that the man didn't even have a chance to pull away. The switchblade fell from his captor's hand and Izaya bit harder, refusing to let go even after Kira started punching him in the face with his free hand. He only released him when the man fell to his knees, Izaya using the chance to knock their heads together hard enough to knock him out. He almost blacked out himself, but he clung to consciousness with everything he had, knowing that if he passed out, he'd die.

He was surprised that no one had burst through the door with all the noise they'd made, but he wasn't about to question why when he had more important things to worry about, like freeing himself from the chair. He began swinging from right to left once the room started spinning around him, gaining enough momentum to fall to the side where the knife was lying on the floor. It took some effort to push himself and the chair he was tied to in its direction, a feat he succeeded in too many minutes. Cutting the ropes was surprisingly easy once he got his hand on the switchblade, his heart finally slowing down a bit after fearing so badly that he'd get caught before he could free himself.

His twisted and swollen ankle hurt a lot more than it had that morning after being tied for so many hours with tight ropes, but he pushed past the pain and limped to the door, hand freezing in mid-air when he reached for the handle and he heard a familiar voice calling his name. "It can't be..." he uttered in shock, and yet his suspicion turned out to be true when the door swung open, revealing none other than Ikebukuro's strongest, the man's expression one of worry as mocha eyes settled on his archenemy.

"Are you alright?" Shizuo asked, bloody fists clenching and unclenching as he reminded himself that he wasn't allowed to touch Izaya. "What happened?"

"We don't have time right now," Izaya announce in an urgent tone as he limped past Shizuo who moved out of the way. "We need to find Ayato."

Shizuo gave him a confused look. "Who?"

"It's this kid. We need to find him," Izaya repeated without even sparing Shizuo a glance, his eyes darting in all directions looking for a way out. The pain in his ankle intensified and he had to stop no more than ten steps later, Shizuo giving him a worried look and offering him his arm. Izaya glowered at it but accepted the help anyway, knowing that he couldn't waste any more time. "Where are we?" he asked Shizuo who was walking a bit too slowly for his taste.

"It looks like an old abandoned clinic outside of Tokyo." A moment later they reached the passed out old man and Shizuo felt the need to defend himself before Izaya even had a chance to say a word. "I did not hit him. He lost his balance and fell down when he attacked me."

Izaya had to fight the urge to kick the unconscious bastard. To his surprise, he found out that Shizuo was not alone once they got out of the building. Two Awakusu-kai men were with him, both of them kicking two fallen Blood Hounds members. Unfortunately, Bear and Ayato were nowhere to be seen. "There's a third guy we need to find. He's taken someone I know. Find him and save the kid," Izaya requested of them, the two men nodding and splitting up to look in different directions. He then turned to Shizuo, who was looking around as though he was trying to decide in which direction to go looking. "I'll stay here, you go ahead. I'm slowing you down."

"No, you're coming with me. I'm not leaving you here alone," Shizuo declared and went around the building, dragging a limping Izaya after him. Further away from the back of the building was a small forest, something that looked like the perfect place where one could murder and bury someone. They exchanged looks of agreement and increased their pace, Izaya letting out sounds of pain once in a while because of how much faster Shizuo was going and because of the uneven terrain they were walking on.

It was Shizuo who heard the sounds first, sounds of pleasure mixed with those of agony, and then saw the ones they were looking for, Izaya being too busy trying to keep up to notice much around him. The air was knocked out of his lungs at the sight and the world starting to spin around him, a feeling of nausea settling over him like a heavy fog. He could hardly think as he spun around a startled Izaya, heart pounding in his chest so fast that he could barely hear himself talk. "Close your eyes, cover your ears and pretend you're somewhere else. Don't open them until I come back," he told him in a surprisingly calm, almost soothing voice before he took the smaller hands and placed them over the man's ears. Afterwards, he used his own hand to cover Izaya's eyes, only removing it once he felt fluttering eyelids lower and he knew that Izaya had listened to him and closed his eyes. He gave him one last glance and turned around, heading in the direction of the sounds as his feet carried him faster than he ever remembered running before.

Exactly seven seconds later, after he disregarded Shizuo's request and his brain finally recognized the sounds behind his own heavy breathing and the pounding of his heart, Izaya wished he would've listened to Shizuo. He had opened them just in time to see Shizuo pull Bear off of Ayato and throwing him into the nearest tree, the beast then stomping in the direction of the monster and starting to hit him, each blow breaking bones and making the much bigger man scream in agony.

Memories of feeling pain, despair and hopelessness hit him all at once and he froze, eyes glued to the fallen Ayato while violent tremors hit his body. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he should move and go help Ayato who was bleeding heavily from the abdomen, but he couldn't get his feet to move, not when his mind was playing tricks on him and he was seeing himself lying there, bleeding to death after being broken by a monster.

Shizuo on the other hand was drowning in a sea of anger. He'd lost himself to his rage to such a degree that the film in his head cut off around the time he'd grabbed a monster not so different from himself. He came back to his senses just as he was about to crush the man's skull with a heavy blow to the face, the direction of his fist deviating at the last second and crashing into the tree behind. The tree split in two and Shizuo staggered backwards, reluctantly letting go of the now unconscious man.

He gulped in a few desperate mouthfuls of air and then turned around, taking off his jacket as he made his way to the Ayato kid who appeared to be chocking on his own blood. He covered the half naked Ayato as best as he could and then applied pressure on the two stab wounds, heart breaking into a million pieces when he finally saw Izaya standing there, looking as white as a ghost. "Close your eyes," he pleaded, the mere sound of his voice making Izaya flinch. "Close your eyes," he repeated, sounding a lot more desperate than before. "Please!"

Izaya didn't close his eyes, unable to tear red-brown orbs away from Ayato's trembling hand. It looked like the kid was trying to reach for something or someone, or maybe he was desperately trying to cling to the world of the living. A few moments later Ayato stopped moving altogether, his arm falling to the ground with a thud. That's when the horrifying spell broke and Izaya felt that he could move again. Dead, the word thundered in his head, and he turned around and ran, or rather limped, away from there.

Shizuo didn't follow, knowing that Izaya needed some time alone. His eyes fell on the young bloody face of the kid he'd just failed to save and he grit his teeth in anger and frustration, wishing he would've arrived sooner so that he could save both him and Izaya. No one should have to die like this, he thought as he pulled back trembling hands. He remained there for a while longer, until the ambulance he'd called for after the old man fell down arrived and he was told to get out of there so that they could work in peace.

"He doesn't deserve this," he growled when the two men abandoned Ayato after concluding he was dead and moved on to helping the monster who'd just raped and stabbed a kid. "He doesn't deserve your help!" he shouted as he grabbed one of them by the arm and pulled him away. "Look what he did to him!" he continued as he pointed to the kid.

"We understand, but it's our duty to help everyone, no matter who they are or what they have done," the other replied without even stopping what he was doing to look up at Shizuo.

Knowing that if he didn't get away from there that very second he might end up hurting at least one or both of them, he spun around and stomped away from there, his own self-hatred reaching astronomical proportions by the time he arrived at the abandoned building. The man he'd nearly killed was no different than Shizuo himself; they were both monsters. They both deserved to die, slowly and painfully, a million times over for acting like beasts instead of rational human beings. All of his strength suddenly left him and he sat down on the stairs moments before he would've collapsed, the horror of what he'd done to Izaya taking on a whole new level of horrifying after becoming a spectator to such an act on top of a participant. His stomach violently spasmed and he threw up on the stairs, shivering.

One of the Awakusu-kai men tried talking to him, but Shizuo slipped into his own world where he continued to stay long after the Police arrived there. It was only when he heard someone mention that they couldn't find Izaya that he snapped out of it and went looking for the man, knowing that if there was anyone who could find Izaya, it was him. He found him deeper into the forest behind a tree, staring blankly at the ground and looking unresponsive. Not knowing what else to do, he picked him up in his arms and made his way back to the building, brushing off the cops who wanted to talk to both him and Izaya and carefully placing the too thin man on the back seat of the car he'd arrived in.

Shiki's men drove them to the building Izaya lived in and Shizuo carried him up to the apartment, all the while wondering what was wrong with Izaya. He thought about calling Shinra, but he didn't think he could deal with the doctor when he was barely holding himself together. Besides the twisted ankle, the split lip and the bleeding wrists, Izaya seemed to be alright, albeit sporting a few bruises, so Shizuo wiped the blood off the wan face and the too frail wrists and put Izaya to bed, staggering out of the room and then sliding down the wall next to the door, unable to take another step forward. He just sat there, head spinning as he fought wave after wave of nausea until he blacked out, exhaustion finally taking its toll on him.

Chapter 84: Falling to Pieces

As he lay there, beaten bloody and shivering from the cold and the pain, Kasuka wished that he hadn't come back to his senses so soon. Then again, he had no idea how much time had passed between the last time he'd lost consciousness and the moment he woke up again. The last few hours were a blur, a nightmare from which he wished he could wake up since he didn't know for how much longer he'd be able to keep his mind intact. He never imagined that all it took to bring him to the brink of breaking point would be sleep deprivation combined with constant beatings and getting what he assumed were toothpicks shoved into his fingers beneath the nails, deep enough to reach the first knuckle. He remembered passing out a few times during the process, as well as the sadist's laughter as he tortured him.

The raw agony spreading from his fingers had been enough to make him scream, but he refused to give the bastard the satisfaction so he'd kept his mouth shut as much as he could, knowing how much Adabashi enjoyed every sound he made while the monster took his time pushing the toothpicks into his fingers.

"Beg," the word reached his ears from somewhere close and Kasuka violently recoiled away from the source of the sound, startled. He hadn't known that the sadist was still there.

"Beg me to take them out," Adabashi continued, thoroughly enjoying the sight of Hanejima Yuuhei trembling like a terrified puppy. Such a man was not worthy of even being in the presence of Hijiribe Ruri, and he was going to make him understand that, one way or another. "Beg, I said!"

Kasuka was having a hard time accepting the fact that Adabashi terrified him and that he couldn't stop trembling. He guessed that it was his body's natural reaction to so much torture, but that didn't make it any easier to accept.

"You know, I sent Ruri-chan that nail I pulled out," Adabashi revealed, chuckling. His laughter was however cut short when the previously terrified puppy lunged at him and wrapped weak fingers around his throat, trying to choke him to death. He'd been startled by the unexpected show of defiance since he thought he'd finally beaten the actor into submission, but the man proved him wrong and now Adabashi knew that he obviously needed to work harder to break him if Hanejima Yuuhei still had the courage to attack him. His eye twitched in annoyance as he grabbed one of the hands wrapped around his throat, pulled it away and squeezed it hard, the action earning him a loud shrill of agony.

To his shame, Kasuka could no longer stop the sounds from escaping his mouth, nor could he continue to stand when the pain in his hand got so bad that it almost took away his ability to breathe. He fell down on his knees, more and more tears springing from his eyes as Adabashi twisted his arm and kept squeezing his fingers, the man not stopping even when Kasuka started screaming louder than ever before. It was almost surreal since Kasuka couldn't remember making such sounds before, not even when he was a child and people with a grudge against Shizuo beat him up because they didn't stand a chance against his brother.

"Since you didn't want to beg me to take them out, then how about you beg me to stop?" Adabashi suggested after easing his grip a little so that Yuuhei would stop screaming and hear what he needed to do in order to stop the pain.

"I... I'm g-going to... kill y-you," Kasuka promised in a trembling but defiant voice.

The last thing he heard before he passed out was the sickening crunching sound of his elbow breaking and Adabashi's malicious laughter ringing in his ears. He never welcomed the darkness quicker than he did at that moment.

***

The sun was starting to set when Izaya finally stirred in his bed after floating for what felt like forever in a state between being awake and asleep. The emotional overload he'd suffered earlier that day left him feeling exhausted, the task of even moving a finger almost making him want to give up and go to sleep. It'd been a while since he'd felt this desperate need to stay in bed and hide away from the world, something he used to do a lot during the first few days after getting trampled over by a beast. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten home, but what he was sure of was that his place was safe and that no one and nothing could hurt him as long as he didn't leave it. At least his mind was finally letting him catch a break, no longer torturing him with flashbacks of a dark alley and a beast making him bleed and then leaving him to die like a dog.

He never thought he would consider himself lucky, not after what he'd been through, and yet he was starting to feel quite lucky after seeing the horrible way in which Ayato had been killed. That could've easily been him if Shizuo had really wanted to kill him and if Kasuka hadn't found him and called Shinra. A violent shudder went through his body and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm down since the thought of dying was still as terrifying as always, something he wished to prevent at all costs. True, there had been days when the idea of not feeling anything anymore sounded like sweet relief, but if that meant death, then he would always choose the pain and the fear over not existing anymore.

The thought of Ayato dying like that was enough to make him dizzy. He might not have known him well or cared about him, but Izaya still wished he would've gotten there in time to save him. The kid's last moments were now engraved into his mind and Izaya knew that he would never be able to erase them. How scared he must've felt, Izaya thought sadly, heart aching at the thought of someone so strong being reduced to something so weak and helpless. It only served to further remind him that no one in the world was invincible and that there was always someone out there who could take you down. Ayato might've been a master at fighting, but in the end, the poor kid couldn't do anything to stop a monster from using him for its own twisted pleasure.

With a sad expression on his face, he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position and took a few moments to catch his breath before standing up and heading in the direction of the door. Every little movement felt exhausting because of how drained he felt, but lying in bed was no longer an option since he couldn't stand the coppery smell of blood clinging to his skin and clothes. A pained hiss slipped past his lips and his brows furrowed in annoyance, but he continued limping anyway, even after realizing that his ankle hurt a lot worse than he remembered.

Cursing under his breath, he opened the door and nearly jumped out of his skin a moment later, not expecting to find an either sleeping or passed out beast outside his bedroom. A shudder passed though his body at the sight of Shizuo since the flashbacks were still too fresh in his mind, but he didn't feel the impulse to cower from the man's presence or run away in fear. That in itself was a small victory. It meant that as long as Shizuo's anger wasn't directed at him, he was more than fine in the presence of the beast.

As he continued to stare at his archenemy, bits and pieces of what must've happened started to come back to him, like scenes from a dream he couldn't recall very well. He remembered Shizuo's almost soothing voice asking him to get up and then the feeling of warmth and the sensation of floating as the beast must've probably carried him out of the forest. He should've been angry, furious even, but he couldn't find within him the energy to get mad, not when he'd given Shizuo permission to touch him earlier when they had both gone looking for Ayato. Besides, it was best that it was Shizuo and not someone else who had seen him looking so pathetic since the beast had already seen him at his worst. Nothing would ever be more humiliating than losing to a beast and then crying and screaming while allowing said beast to rip him apart and fuck him bloody.

You didn't allow anything, Izaya had to remind himself since he sometimes tended to forget that there was nothing he could've done to stop Shizuo from doing what he did. Even so, it still didn't stop him from thinking that he should've fought harder, that maybe he could've done something to stop Shizuo before the beast completely lost it. Could've apologized, he thought, frowning, but quickly dismissed it because that was something he never would've done anyway since it went against his very nature to apologize to anyone, let alone his archenemy.

Frowning at his own thoughts, he picked some clean clothes, limped past a passed out Shizuo (he was not ready to face the beast just yet), and went into the bathroom, making sure to lock the door behind him before taking his clothes off and washing away the dried blood. He didn't waste any time and rinsed himself as quickly as possible, knowing that if he gave into his own thoughts about how dirty he was, he'd end up spending at least an hour scrubbing away at his skin. It wasn't something he did very often, but sometimes the memory of Shizuo on him and inside him was too much and the only way to feel clean again was to scrub at his skin until it turned red.

Luckily, he had other things to focus on, things different enough from what he'd experienced at Shizuo's hands to ground himself into the present. His wrists hurt quite a lot because of the broken skin, but his face felt the worst because of the too many punches he'd received from that bastard Kira. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he knew that talking would be a pain because of the badly split lip, but all in all he was glad that he'd managed to get out of there in one piece. If he hadn't managed to free himself and if Shizuo hadn't shown up, Kira might've beat him to a bloody pulp and then tortured him in the same way they had tortured Ayato. Then, once they were done with him, they could've asked Bear to finish him off, but Bear might not have done it right away and instead―

"No," he found himself weakly uttering the word as his hand shot to the wall to steady himself, the mere thought of going through something like that again enough to make him lose his balance. "No no no," he then kept repeating the word as he fought to chase away the nausea, eyes screwed shut and body trembling while the too hot water continued to patter his bruised body. He didn't know for how long he remained like that, his mind replacing Ayato's face with his own and then torturing him with a viciousness that almost left him breathless. When he finally came back to his senses he was sitting down on the shower's floor, lukewarm water now pattering his shivering body.

With some effort, he managed to push himself to a standing position and limped out of the shower, almost forgetting to turn off the water because of how shaken he was. He slowly dried himself off and then got dressed, wincing every time one of his many injuries hurt a bit too much. Once he was done he walked out of the bathroom, ignored the still sleeping or passed out Shizuo and went downstairs where he pretty much collapsed in his desk chair, breathing in relief and taking a few minutes to gather his strength before finally opening his laptop so that he could find a distraction, anything to keep his mind occupied. Yuigadokusonmaru crawled into his lap a couple of minutes later and stayed there, Izaya welcoming the little purring fur-ball he always enjoyed petting. Videos of cute cats seemed to be working as a good distraction in the beginning, but after a while, Izaya's mind was back to that forest and he would see himself standing there like a coward, frozen in place by fear. He realized at that moment that he desperately needed to talk to someone about what had happened.

Fujita Shizuka's name popped into his head because she was the only one he felt relatively comfortable talking to, but the woman was no longer answering no matter how many times he called and Izaya had no idea who else he could talk to. He could always try talking to Shinra, but the man had already seen him torn apart by a beast and he didn't want to reach a point where he couldn't even look his friend in the eyes anymore because of how embarrassed he felt. It was already hard enough knowing that every time Shinra looked at him, the only thing he saw was that broken man who failed to protect himself and almost died a shameful death. In the end, the only one he could really talk to was Shizuka. He guessed that calling again wouldn't hurt, but he couldn't do it with Shizuo inside the apartment and risk the beast hearing him, which meant that he'd first have to get rid of him.

He gently picked Yuigadokusonmaru up, placed him on the desk and then made his way upstairs, trying not to wince every time his foot touched the ground. Going up the stairs was especially difficult, but he pushed past the pain and eventually reached the still passed out beast.

"Wake up already," Izaya demanded, his tone one of annoyance. "Shizu-chan?" When the beast still didn't stir, he bent down a little and poked Shizuo's forehead a few times, hoping that would finally do the trick. He would've kicked the idiot awake, but his ankle hurt too much and he didn't want to further aggravate his injury.

It was only when Izaya grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him a few times that Shizuo finally woke up, hissing because Izaya was putting pressure on the bullet wound with his thumb.

Izaya pulled back his hand, nose wrinkling in disgust when he saw a smear of blood on his thumb. He was just about to call Shizuo disgusting when the beast's voice reached his ears, a voice so dead and defeated that Izaya could barely recognize it as belonging to the same being who had once defeated a god. It was even worse than that time when Shizuo thought he had Kasuka and begged him to give him back his brother.

"Just kill me," Shizuo requested in a hollow voice as he sat there on the floor with his back against the wall and his arms hanging limply by his sides. He felt dead on the inside, or at least he wished he was dead now that he couldn't get the image of a monster not so different from himself committing the same atrocious act he was guilty of. "How... how can you stand there so calmly and not slit my throat? How could you take care of me and feed me when the only thing I deserve is a slow and painful death?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask, his previously hollow voice now trembling with guilt and self-loathing.

Izaya opened his mouth to tell him that death was a too light punishment for him, but the deafening silence was instead shattered by this weird sniffling sound coming from Shizuo, something reminding him of...

"Are you crying?" Izaya asked, his tone one of utter disbelief. It was almost too hard to believe, so he grabbed his archenemy by the jaw and raised his head in order to confirm it, a soft gasp slipping past too dry lips when he saw a tear sliding down the man's face. "Between the two of us, you are the one crying?"

"I'm sorry," Shizuo uttered brokenly, trembling in Izaya's grasp. "I'm so sorry," he whispered again and then gently grabbed Izaya's hand and guided it to his neck, silently begging for the punishment he knew he deserved.

After a few moments of staring in shocked silence at the defeated expression on his archenemy's face, Izaya let out a sound of disgust and pulled back his hand. "No, you don't get to run away after what you did. Face it like a man, or in your case, a beast, just as I have been doing it this whole time. We both have no choice but to live with the shame of what happened that night, me for not being strong enough to fight you off and you for doing something as monstrous as that."

"I can't anymore," Shizuo revealed brokenly.

"What about your brother?" Izaya asked since he knew that Kasuka was always a sensitive subject for Shizuo and that the beast would do anything for his brother. Immediately, Shizuo's formerly limp hands turned to fists and Izaya knew that he was on the right track if it got Shizuo to react instead of just sitting there like a broken doll.

"H-He's probably d-dead anyway," Shizuo replied, voice trembling with the effort it took to even put his dark thoughts into words.

"Actually, he was in fact at that cabin; the DNA results confirm it," Izaya told Shizuo who shuddered at the news. "The person who took him is clearly in no hurry to kill him."

Slowly, Shizuo raised his hands, grabbed his hair and began tugging at it in both hopelessness and terror as he imaged all sort of terrible things that might've happened to his brother in that place. "What if he was tortured there? What if he was r-ra―"

"Raped?" Izaya finished for him when he realized what Shizuo was trying to say. "That would be unfortunate, but Kasu-chan is strong and I'm sure that he would find a way to move forward even if such a thing were to happen to him." The truth was that Izaya couldn't blame Shizuo for thinking such dark thoughts because a lot of cases where the kidnapper didn't make any demands ended with the rape and murder of the victim, be it male, female or child.

"W-What if we never find him?"

Izaya sighed. "We will."

"And what if we find him?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask, terrified at the thought of finding a broken Kasuka.

"Then you'll be there to help him pick up the broken pieces, like an older brother should do," Izaya reminded him since he'd noticed long ago that Kasuka acted more like an older brother than Shizuo ever did.

"I... I c-can't," Shizuo admitted, arms falling limply by his sides once again.

Pissed off that their discussion was going nowhere, Izaya went downstairs, picked up something from his desk and then made his way back upstairs, his annoyance at the whole thing quickly being replaced by glee knowing what he was about to do. "Get up and go home. This is your last warning." He waited for a whole minute (he counted in his head) for Shizuo to do as he'd been told, but when the beast continued to just sit there instead of listening to him, Izaya expanded the baton he was holding with a quick downwards motion of his hand and began hitting Shizuo with it, enjoying the shocked look on the beast's face when their eyes met.

"Enough with the pity party," Izaya said and hit Shizuo on the arm again, putting as much strength into the blow as he possible could. There was just something therapeutic about beating up the man who had violently raped him and then left him to die like a dog, so he continued to hit Shizuo, not even stopping when the beast began to flinch every time he raised the baton. In the end, it was still Izaya who stopped first because he no longer had the energy to continue. He wasn't done yet though, so he pressed the tip of the baton against the bullet wound, the action earning him a pained hiss.

"Shizu-chan is being a very bad dog, not listening to his master and all that," Izaya commented in what sounded like disappointment. Surely Shizuo would react and get up since he knew how much the beast hated being called a dog. To his surprise, Shizuo only further lowered his head, as though the idiot wanted to be punished some more. "Oh!" Izaya exclaimed in surprise, only now realizing that Shizuo wasn't listening to him because the moron probably saw this as part of the punishment he thought he deserved. "See? It's like I've been saying. Shizu-chan is clearly a masochist on top of a sadist."

Shizuo was about to argue that he wasn't one, that he had only allowed Izaya to hit him because he deserved to be hurt for all the bad things he'd done lately, but a drop of something hit the floor and he couldn't help but raise his head once he realized that it was blood. "You're hurt," he stated and then a moment later got up and headed in the direction of the bathroom, leaving a stunned Izaya behind. He came out a couple of minutes later, carrying the first aid kit he knew Izaya kept in one of the cabinets there. He found the man downstairs, Izaya giving him an annoyed look while tapping on the desk with one of his fingers and petting Yuigadokusonmaru with his other hand.

Without a word, he walked around the desk, sat down on the floor next to Izaya's chair, opened the small box and then finally looked up at Izaya who appeared to be too shocked to speak. "Give me your hand," he requested in a soft voice, knowing how much Izaya hated being told what to do. He almost expected the man to punch him in the face, but Izaya gave him his hand as requested, the previous shocked expression now replaced by an amused one. "I'm sorry."

"For what? You have too many things to apologize for and I can't read minds, unfortunately, to guess for which thing exactly you're trying to apologize."

"You got hurt because of me," Shizuo answered and proceeded to wipe away the blood around the too frail wrist he'd broken before.

"You're an idiot," Izaya uttered the words tiredly, unable to tear his eyes away from the same hands that had once showed him pain like no other. The contrast was uncanny to say the least, but as he sat there, allowing the monster of his nightmares to apply ointment and then bandage his wrists, he realized that the one before him was the most human part of Heiwajima Shizuo, the kind person that Kasuka had mentioned before. It was probably what Shizuo would've really been like if the man didn't have anger issues. "This you is boring," he couldn't help but declare with a sigh.

"I wish I was even more boring, so that I could've led a quiet life," Shizuo confessed as he closed the box and got up, a feeling of vertigo hitting him a moment later and forcing him to grab the edge of the desk so that he wouldn't lose his balance.

"Interesting," Izaya mused, eyes narrowing as they roamed over the large blood stain covering the front of Shizuo's T-shirt. "This whole time I've been wondering why you don't heal as quickly as you used to, but I think that I finally figured out the answer to that mystery." Since even Shizuo seemed curious, if the questioning look was any indication, Izaya continued. "Your immune system is getting weaker because of the severe depression you're suffering from as a result of the feelings of guilt you're experiencing over what you've done. The fact that your brother has been kidnapped doesn't help matters either since it adds feelings of helplessness on top of those of guilt."

"Tch, that makes no sense, flea. It's not like I can think it and magically heal or damage myself," Shizuo muttered as he walked away from the desk.

"You'd be surprised what the human mind is capable of. Now leave before I get up and beat you like a dog again," Izaya warned as he grabbed the baton previously lying on the desk and pointed it in the direction of the too human beast. "Oh, and it looks like you popped your stitches again, so pay Sakamoto a visit before you go home. Remember, Shizu-chan, you're not allowed to die until I say so, so stop with subconsciously sabotaging yourself."

Too tired to argue, Shizuo opened the door and walked out of the apartment, mostly because he knew that if he stayed, Izaya might end up hurting himself again and a hurt Izaya was one of the things Shizuo never wanted to see again. A hurt Izaya reminded him of that night and anything reminding him of that night was too much to bear.

Izaya picked up the phone and speed-dialed Shizuka as soon as Shizuo was out the door, nervously tapping on the desk with his other hand while he waited and hoped that she'd pick up this time. Unfortunately, she didn't, which led to Izaya slamming his fist on the desk, scaring poor Yuigadokusonmaru in the process.

"Aww, I didn't mean to," Izaya told him apologetically as he spread his arms and waited for the adorable ball of fur to lie down on his lap. "I've just had a bad day, that's all. A very bad day..."

***

The hospital was buzzing with a lot more people than usual when Shizuo finally arrived there even though it was well past eleven at night. "I'll be right back," he told the two Awakusu-kai men who apparently had waited for him outside Izaya's building the whole time he was in there.

"I'll accompany you, Shizuo-san," the younger one offered, eyes sparkling with admiration.

Shizuo grunted his approval since he was not in the mood to argue and went up the stairs, wanting to get it over with as soon as possible so that he could go home. Izaya's home, he corrected himself and made up his mind to clean up the apartment that very night and head back to his own in the morning. He was well enough now to be able to defend himself against anyone who would attack him. Maybe not so well, he then added as an afterthought when he careened a bit to the side even though he was trying to walk straight.

"Wait here," he then told the man following him once he reached Sakamoto's office. He pressed the handle to walk in but the door didn't open. At first he thought that Sakamoto had perhaps gone home, but a pained sound coming from inside made him rush in, breaking the door in the process.

"Oi, you two wanna die?" he asked with a growl once he saw the two other men inside, one of them in the process of twisting the arm of a beaten up Sakamoto while the other was going through the drawers in the office. "Let him go," he barked the order at the bastard hurting Sakamoto. He was just about ready to dash forward and pummel him into the ground when the Awakusu-kai man he was with came in and seemed to recognize the other two.

"Guys, why are you here?"

"Trying to find information on where the Blood Hounds' leader might hide," the one hurting Sakamoto said and twisted the doctor's arm harder, the action earning him a loud shrill of agony.

"Okay, that's it," Shizuo said and a moment later he was across the room, grabbing the bastard and trowing him into the wall so fast that the guy didn't even have a chance to react. "It looks to me like you two are Awakusu-kai, but you see, I don't care. You hurt him," he said while he pointed to the doctor, "and now you're going to pay."

"Shizuo-san, wait!" his 'bodyguard' pleaded and moved to block the path of Ikebukuro's strongest just as the man was about to grab his friend. "Let's talk this out."

"Yeah, let's talk this out," Sakamoto agreed in a pained voice as he slowly got up, dusting himself off after having been thrown down on the floor a few times.

"I keep telling these gentlemen that I have no idea where my 'dear' uncle is, but they don't believe me."

"Someone in their organization gave us your name and told us to ask you about your uncle. He said you'll know for sure where he ran off to," the one still standing argued.

Sakamoto sighed loudly and sat down in his desk chair, hissing when his aching elbow touched the armrest. "Look, most people in my uncle's organization hate my guts because I don't want to have anything to do with them. They lied to you knowing that you'd hurt me."

"You heard him, now get the hell out of here before I break your legs," Shizuo threatened and pointed to the door.

"But―"

"Out!" Shizuo roared, both men cowering in front of his rage. They picked up the unconscious guy and then dragged him out of the room, the one he arrived in the car with apologizing for his friends and assuring him that he would call Shiki and clear up the whole thing.

"Are you okay?" Shizuo asked once they were alone.

"I'm fine," Sakamoto said as he stood up. "You on the other hand don't look so well. What happened?"

"I popped a couple of stitches again," Shizuo mumbled.

Sakamoto sighed but didn't admonish Shizuo. For once he was glad to see the man show up at the hospital unannounced.

Chapter 85: Lurking in the Shadows

After a long conversation with Shiki, Izaya found out that the man was in the hospital and that most of the Blood Hounds members still alive, as well as their leader, were on the run. It turns out that many other groups wanted the Blood Hounds out of the picture because of how violent they were, so at Dougen's proposal, they all agreed to cooperate this one time to bring them down. Sakamoto's uncle, also known as The Wolf, had somehow managed to escape, but there was a price on the man's head and Shiki had no doubt that he'd soon be found. It looked like the Blood Hounds' attempt to bring down the Awakusu-kai had not only failed, but also resulted in their own downfall.

"Are you sure you're not going to die, Shiki-san?" Izaya asked just as Shiki was about to hang up.

"I'm sure," Shiki assured him in an irritated voice since he knew where this was going.

"You're getting old, Shiki-san. You need to take better care of yourself," Izaya teased.

"You're no longer twenty-one yourself, Informant-san," Shiki countered, "so I suggest you follow your own advice."

“I don’t know what you’re talking, bye~” Izaya chirped and ended the call, glad to know that the Awakusu-kai Executive would be alright.

They’d tried to ambush him when he went home to change, but Shiki and his driver, who was also an Awakusu-kai member, were able to bring down the five men sent to capture him. Shiki had gotten slashed by a sword in the process, but it wasn't serious enough to put his life in danger.

“I knew they wouldn’t be able to catch Shiki-san,” Izaya told Yuigadokusonmaru who yawned and then curled into a tighter ball in his arms. Izaya yawned as well, but unfortunately, his mind was too restless and he couldn’t fall asleep no matter how much he wished to do so. That and because he feared the nightmares he knew would surely come to haunt and torture him.

His eyes drifted over the bandages Shizuo had wrapped around his wrists and he couldn't help but think that perhaps boring Shizuo was not so bad. A Heiwajima Shizuo without his anger issues and the inhuman strength was someone that Izaya would've probably never noticed, which meant that the man would've never attacked him and Izaya wouldn't get to find out what it means to be a victim. As he thought about that, Izaya realized that he very much wished to live in such a reality. He also realized that if he didn't talk to someone about what happened with Ayato, and soon, he might end up losing his mind.

"Why aren't you answering, Fujita-san?" Izaya mumbled, glowering at the phone.

***

It was around nine in the morning when a police officer knocked on his door and asked Izaya to accompany him to the police station because the officer in charge of the case wanted to talk to him about the previous day's events. Izaya was quite twitchy when he finally arrived at the police station, but he mostly blamed that on the too many cups of coffee he'd had during the night. Still, he couldn't deny that he was nervous about the whole thing because the Awakusu-kai were involved and the last thing Izaya wanted to do was to implicate the group.

"This way," the police officer who had picked him up from his apartment told him as he led Izaya through some corridors and then motioned for him to sit down on one of the chairs outside what Izaya assumed was the interrogation room. He thought he might have to wait there for a while, but to his surprise, a ghostly-pale but otherwise energetic-looking Shizuo walked out of there not even five minutes later, the beast only noticing him when Izaya called out his name. Unfortunately, they weren't given a chance to exchange any words because Sawazaki Kotaro, the same detective who had accused him of stabbing Shizuo, also walked out of the same room and told Izaya to go in and sit down.

"I expect your full cooperation, Orihara-san," Sawazaki made it clear.

"Of course," Izaya assured him and then proceeded to tell the story, starting from the moment Yamashita Kira and a few others tried to capture him a few months back and continuing up until the moment he and Shizuo had found Ayato.

"So you and Heiwajima-san found Ayato and then what happened?" Sawazaki pressed once the man had gone quiet.

"Shizu-chan must've lost it because he kept hitting Bear even after that monster lost consciousness. I think he finally came back to his senses just as he was about to smash that bastard's face in."

"What did Heiwajima-san do afterwards?"

Izaya barely suppressed a shudder as the memories of what happened next flooded his mind, so vivid that he even recalled from which side the wind was blowing when Ayato gave his last gurgled breath. "Shizu-chan took off his jacket and used it to cover Ayato's lower half. He then put pressure on the abdomen wounds to try to stop the bleeding, but we obviously arrived there too late because the kid died less than a minute later."

"And you, Orihara-san? What did you do?"

"I... nothing. I guess I froze," Izaya revealed. He wasn't sure what Shizuo had told the man and admitting to being human was better than Sawazaki thinking he was some psycho who didn't feel anything. That and the less lies he told, the better."It's not something you ever expect to see, you know?" he then continued, making sure to emphasize on how shocking the whole thing was. "I mean, what are the chances of that happening to a man?"

"It happens more often than you'd think, but because most men feel humiliated by what happened and ashamed about not being able protect themselves, they either don't report it or refuse to press charges."

Izaya knew very well what that sort of shame and humiliation felt like, but he had to admit that he was surprised to find out that such a thing happened more often than he'd originally thought. He'd always been under the impression that it was a rare occurrence due to the fact that it was almost unheard of. Izaya himself had never in a million years imagined that such a thing could happen to him. "I can't blame them for not reporting it," he finally said. "Would you?" he then asked the detective.

"I would, but that's because I'm a police officer and I know that such people almost always end up doing it again if they get away with. I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone else getting hurt because I was too ashamed to report it."

Izaya couldn't help but think back to all those times he thought that Shizuo might attack him again. It was a natural response, considering what he'd been through, and yet the idea of Shizuo doing the same thing to someone else was hard to even imagine. He was now certain that the only reason the beast had done it in the first place was because the one he attacked was him, Orihara Izaya, and because Shizuo hated him enough to want to destroy him but not enough to want to kill him. It was pretty obvious that things between them had been messed up since the day they had met and that their twisted hatred was bound to take a terrible turn sooner or later.

"Anyway," Sawazaki broke the silence, "what did you do once you realized that Ayato had died?"

"Seeing him like that was too painful even if I didn't know him very well, so I left. The last thing I remember before waking up home in my bed is sitting down on the ground and leaning against a tree."

"I see. Anything else you'd like to tell me?" Sawazaki asked, his previously calm voice switching to something more aggressive.

"No... not really," Izaya answered, surprised by the change in tone. "I told you everything I know."

"So you didn't help Shiki Haruya find Yamashita Rikuto?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya replied, all the while maintaining eye contact as to not show that he had something to hide.

"Yamashita-san says that a few people saw three men dragging out a struggling Rikuto out of the man's ex-girlfriend's apartment and that you and Shiki Haruya were with those men," Sawazaki dropped the bomb. "Police officers are talking to those witnesses as we speak." He expected Orihara Izaya to show some fear over being caught lying, but the man maintained his calm facade.

"Now that you've mentioned it..." Izaya started, looking pensive, "I remember seeing such a scene when I was showing Shiki-san the building I was hoping he'd invest in. You see, I'm a Financial Planner," Izaya said and pulled out his business card, all the while looking as innocent as it gets.

"So this is what you're going with, huh?" Sawazaki commented in an annoyed voice as he crumpled the business card in his hand.

Izaya blinked. "I don't understand what you're trying to say."

"A kid died for the simple reason of having saved you and you don't even have the decency to tell me the truth."

Sawazaki looked pretty angry and it made Izaya want to get the hell out of there since his nerves were still pretty raw and having someone raise his tone at him wasn't really helping, but he couldn't exactly walk out of the room in the middle of an interrogation.

"He might've turned eighteen three weeks ago," Sawazaki continued, "but to me he'll always be that twelve years old kid who jumped out the window of his second floor apartment to save himself from a mother who lost her mind in a fit of jealousy and stabbed her husband to death before killing herself."

"You seem to have known him well," Izaya couldn't help but remark.

"My partner and I were the fist officers to arrive at the scene. I was still a rookie back then, so the case left quite the impact on me."

"What happened to him afterwards?"

"He was put in an orphanage since he had no living relatives, but he didn't like it there so he kept running away. I had to drag him back there myself a few times after finding him on the streets. Last time I saw him was on his birthday. He came looking for me at the police station, to rub it in my face that I could no longer force him to go back to the orphanage since he was finally an adult. That evening he bought me drinks and told me that I don't have to worry about him anymore; that he was doing well. He also mentioned you."

"Me?" Izaya asked in surprise, which quickly turned to worry over what the kid might've told the detective.

Sawazaki nodded. "He said that he saved this really cool old man and that the man then gave him a lot of money for having saved him. I only realized last night that the man he was talking about was you."

Izaya's eye twitched at the old man comment but he couldn't get mad at someone who was already dead. If anything, he couldn't help but think how uncool he must've looked in Ayato's eyes during the kid's last few hours.

"I know that he was in a bike gang and that he hurt people, but I also know that deep down inside, he was a good kid who didn't deserve to die like that."

"No one deserves something like that," Izaya murmured softly.

"And that's exactly why I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Sawazaki both warned and promised the man sitting in front of him, the same man he knew was lying through his teeth about what he really did for a living. "You can go for now, but don't leave the city," he said and stood up.

Izaya nodded and stood up as well, but he ended up freezing when a few pictures from the crime scene fell out of the file Sawazaki had just picked up.

"I'm sorry about this," Sawazaki said and crouched down to pick them up.

More like you let them fall, you bastard, Izaya thought, not getting fooled one bit by the so-called accident. It was obvious that the asshole was trying to make him feel sorry enough for Ayato that he'd talk and give Shiki up, but while he may have felt sorry that Ayato had died like that, the kid was not Shinra and as such he didn't care enough to do anything about it. Thinking that perhaps even the whole story about Ayato's mother trying to kill him wasn't true, Izaya decided to look into it himself once he got home. Cursing under his breath, he finally walked out of the interrogation room, feeling slightly dizzy, and pulled the hood over his head.

"You okay, flea?" Shizuo, who had apparently been waiting for him, asked in a low voice after making his way to him.

"Don't follow me," Izaya made it clear as he walked past him and headed towards the exit, not in the mood to talk to Shizuo. He really was not in the mood to talk to anyone for that matter. Except Shizuka, but she was still not answering her phone.

***

Shizuo was so out of it after being told that he might end up in jail if the monster he'd beat up died, that he didn't even realize he'd arrived at the wrong apartment until he walked in. "Shit," he cursed and made his way downstairs and then headed in the direction of Izaya's place so that he could give him back the key and finally be done with it. He'd spent the entire night cleaning up, no longer willing to take advantage of Izaya's kindness. Since he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible so that he could go back to his own place and get out of Izaya's hair, Shizuo called a taxi to drive him to the flea's apartment building. Unfortunately Izaya got into a taxi himself just as Shizuo had arrived there.

"Follow that car," Shizuo told the driver, now wondering where Izaya was going. On second thought, it didn't really matter. It wasn't like Shizuo didn't know that the flea did all sorts of shady business, but unlike before, he couldn't bring himself to get mad over it, not when he himself was scum, an even bigger scum than Izaya who at least had only tried to kill him instead of trying to break him. It didn't mean that he no longer hated Izaya, but only that he no longer saw himself as being better than the man he'd criticized for so many years. They were both trash, each in their own way.

"It stopped," the driver told Shizuo who paid him and got out of the car, scanning the surrounding area for the flea he lost sight of in the crowd. The damn flea was fast even with a limp, but luckily Shizuo caught sight of him again just as the man was crossing the street, said limp giving him away. Shizuo didn't think that calling Izaya's name out loud would be a very good idea, so instead he silently tried to make his way to him, losing him a few times because the bastard kept disappearing into the crowd like a ghost. Shizuo's frustration was pretty high by the time he finally caught up with him, but by then the flea was acting even shadier than usual and it looked like he was following someone too.

Old Shizuo would've grabbed Izaya by the throat, slammed him into the nearest wall and asked him what the fuck he was doing stalking this woman, but current Shizuo couldn't bring himself to do any of that. Instead, he fell into pace beside Izaya and then called his name when it didn't look like the flea had noticed him.

"Shizu-chan?" Izaya squeaked, startled by the unexpected encounter. Wide eyes narrowed into slits and he glared at the dumb beast standing next to him. "Are you following me?" he hissed the words in disgust, his heart speeding up at thought of Shizuo finding out that he was seeing a therapist. It was beyond embarrassing if anyone found out, especially the monster of his nightmare, that he was so broken that he'd sought out professional help.

"No, I just wanted to return the key," Shizuo stated simply as he pulled the key out of the pocket of his pants and waited for Izaya to open his palm. The flea brusquely snatched the key from his hand and shoved it into his own pocket, making Shizuo even more curious about what the hell was the flea up to since he'd expected Izaya to at least protest. He knew how much the flea enjoyed bossing him around in that apartment, something the man wouldn't be able to do once Shizuo went back to his apartment in Ikebukuro.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go!" Izaya snapped when he saw that Shizuo was standing there instead of leaving, his heart nearly stopping a moment later when the beast walked past him, heading straight for Shizuka. It was then when he finally noticed that the man who appeared to have been following her had grabbed her arm and that she was struggling to get away. Beneath the dread nearly chocking him, Izaya had to admit that it was almost beautiful the way Shizuo grabbed the guy by the throat and slammed him into the building's wall, the look of surprise on the poor bastard's face enough to almost make Izaya laugh. The whole thing had obviously startled Shizuka because she let out a small sound of surprise, her face going pale at the terrifying display of raw strength when Shizuo raised the man higher, the poor bastard's legs dangling in the air.

"The hell you doin'?" Shizuo growled as he pulled the guy closer and then pushed him harder into the wall, the action earning him a loud cry of pain. "Can't you tell that the lady doesn't want to talk to you?"

The temptation to run away was sky high, but the need to find out who the man dangling from Shizuo's hand was and what he wanted with his therapist was even greater. In the end, Izaya approached the woman, forcing himself to smile and hopefully hide just how nervous he was. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you," she replied in a shaky voice. "He's getting more bold every day though."

Judging by the look of surprise on her face, she had recognized his voice, but in the end, she said nothing, just as Izaya had expected. Relieved that his secret was still safe, Izaya turned to the stalker, smile disappearing and being replaced by a dangerous look. "Shizu-chan, follow me. Oh, and bring him with us," he told his archenemy before heading in the direction of an alleyway where they could discuss in peace, away from prying eyes.

Like the obedient dog that he was, Shizuo followed, the man in his grip struggling to get away while cursing and threatening to sue them for assault.

"What are you going to do with him?" Shizuka couldn't help but ask, worry replacing relief once they entered the alleyway.

"We're just going to have a talk, that's all," Izaya assured her, smiling even as he pulled out his switchblade and flicked it open. As expected, she didn't run away screaming. The woman was as strong as Izaya thought she was. He then turned to the stalker, smile morphing into a disturbing smirk.

"Listen, creep, if you ever get anywhere near this woman again, I'm going to skin you alive, but not before this guy here," Izaya said as he pointed to Shizuo, "breaks every bone in your body. You see, Shizu-chan is kind of famous around these parts. He's said to be the strongest guy in Ikebukuro. Show him," he then told Shizuo who punched the wall next to the guy's head, barely putting any effort into it since he didn't want to destroy the building. Still, a small crater remained behind when Shizuo pulled back his fist, the stalker's eyes going wide with fear when he realized what kind of monster he had just pissed off.

"I wasn't g-going to h-hurt her. I only wanted t-to talk to h-her," said creep stuttered in terror.

Izaya shook his head, sighing and rolling his eyes at the typical stalker behavior. "It doesn't matter what you wanted," he stated while going through the man's pockets to find the wallet. To his surprise, he also found a switchblade. "Well, look at this. I guess you were lying about only wanting to talk to her after all."

"I wasn't lying! I carry this for protection," he tried to defend himself, but the rest of his words turned into a shrill of agony when the one referred to as Shizu-chan effortlessly broke his left wrist.

Even Shizuka turned really pale, finally realizing just how dangerous these two men were.

"I'm going to keep this," Izaya declared as he pocketed the switchblade. He then took out his phone and took a picture of the man's ID card before putting it back inside the wallet and then into the man's pocket. "Now I know where to find you, and even if you change addresses, I'm still going to find you, because you see, I'm very good at finding people," Izaya assured him, his manic smile making the whimpering man tremble even harder. "Oh, and just in case you aren't convinced, Shizu-chan here works for the Yakuza, so if you don't want to end up at the bottom of the Tokyo River, I suggest you never appear in front of the lady again."

The man nodded frantically, tears running down his face, and ran out of there as soon as he was released, stumbling on his way out of the alley.

"Don't let me ever see you again," Izaya shouted after him. Once the stalker was out of sight, he turned to Shizuka, smiling. "I apologize for making you witness such unsightly behavior, but it was the only way to make sure that he'd never bother you again. Stalkers aren't easily persuaded to stop bothering someone unless they fear for their life, and even then, some of them, the crazy ones especially, don't stop."

"I hope this won't get you in trouble with the police," Shizuka voiced her worries. She might not have approved of the violence she'd just witnessed, but she was grateful nonetheless.

"We'll be fine," both Shizuo and Izaya replied at the same time.

"I see. I truly hope that's the case. You misunderstood something though. He wasn't following me because he was interested in me."

"Oh?" Izaya exclaimed, intrigued.

"It's kind of a long story," Shizuka replied, sighing. "I was on my way to lunch. Would you like to join me?"

"It'd be my pleasure," Izaya answered while Shizuo simply nodded.

"I'm Fujita Shizuka by the way."

"Orihara Izaya."

"Heiwajima Shizuo."

She smiled at the similarity in their names but said nothing.

After the introductions, they followed Shizuka to a restaurant nearby and they all ordered food before she began telling them the story. It turns out that the woman the man was stalking was not Shizuka herself but one of her patients.

"He's under the impression that it's my fault she broke up with him, quit her job and moved away," she told them in a tired voice. She felt relieved though, finally able to eat in peace without having to worry that the man would show up and accuse her of ruining his relationship and asking her for her patient's new address. "I did advise her to get away from him though, since his behavior was not normal."

"It's his own fault for being a creepy bastard," Shizuo concluded.

Izaya nodded in agreement. "If he ever bothers you again, please let me know," Izaya said as he handed her his business card.

"You've already done so much for me. I wouldn't want to bother you even if he shows up again," she said as she checked his business card before putting it inside her wallet. "Actually," she then continued as she pulled out two of her own and handed one to each of her saviors. "If you ever need to talk to someone about anything, don't hesitate to call me. Listening to people and offering advice is my job after all," she said, smiling. "Ah, but please don't call me with a hidden number since I will most likely not answer. That man always called me with a hidden number, at least a dozen times every day."

Finally, Izaya understood why she had stopped answering his calls. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him, but that she didn't want to talk to the stalker.

"Before I go though, I have to ask. Do you really work for the Yakuza, Heiwajima-san?" Shizuka asked, curiosity eating at her even since they were in that alley.

"Temporarily," Shizuo mumbled. "It's a long story."

They parted ways afterwards, Shizuo and Izaya leaving together while Fujita Shizuka went back to work.

"She's nice," Shizuo decided as he gave her one last look.

"Oh right, I forgot that Shizu-chan prefers older women when he's not into raping his archenemy," Izaya commented, the last part spoken in such a low voice that only Shizuo could've heard him. The beast stumbled at the question, clearly disturbed by it. "Are you going to call her?" Instead of replying, Shizuo took out the woman's business card, crumpled it in his hand and threw it into the nearest trash bin. "Guess not. It's for the best anyway," Izaya concluded before leaning in so that he could whisper into Shizuo's ear. "Who would want to date a rapist anyway?" To his surprise, Shizuo seemed pretty calm about it, like he'd already resigned himself to his fate.

"Go home, flea. You're not safe on the streets as long as Sakamoto is still out there," Shizuo reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah, but before I leave, I need to know something. How did you find me yesterday?"

"You said you were going to come to the hospital but you didn't show up. I knew you would never miss the opportunity to see me suffer so I figured that something must've happened to you. I called that Onishi guy who found out that Karisawa was the owner of that messed up site and asked him to hack the phone company or whatever the hell he usually does and find me the last location of your phone."

Izaya was torn between being grateful and wanting to murder Onishi for having betrayed him like that. "I'm going to kill that little treacherous bastard," he hissed. He was however impressed that the beast would even think of something like that.

"Don't," Shizuo replied in a pleading voice, fearing that Izaya might really hurt an innocent person. "He refused to help me even after I told him that I will break both his arms if he didn't, but in the end he called me back, saying that it made no sense for you to be in such a remote area and that it was best that I went there in case something bad had really happened to you."

"Tch, whatever," Izaya decided, no longer in the mood to debate Onishi's fate. All he cared about was that once again he had Shizuka to talk to. Without a word, he started walking away, looking forward to calling her sometimes during the next few days.

Chapter 86: Crumbling Monolith

For the first time in a while, Shizuo went back to his apartment in Ikebukuro. The place was the same yet it felt foreign, most likely because he was no longer the same person he used to be before Izaya had stabbed him and left him for dead. He'd changed, as did the flea. Izaya was far more devious than before, more calculated, calmer even. Izaya knew that showing him kindness tormented Shizuo a lot more than shouting about how much he hated him. A kind Izaya reminded Shizuo that between the two of them, even with Izaya's many sins, the flea was far better than he was.

He hated him for it, as well as for all the other bad things the insect had done over the years, and yet the thought of hurting Izaya or seeing him hurt made him sick to his stomach. Every time he saw the flea bleeding, he couldn't help but recall the terror he'd seen in the eyes of the frightened animal he'd left bleeding in that alley. Every time the flea appeared before his eyes looking hurt, it reminded Shizuo that the insect was in fact human. Izaya might have been good at running away and even slashing him once in a while, but a captured Izaya was no different than any of the other men Shizuo had fought before. Orihara Izaya was more fragile than Shizuo had ever imagined, but at the same time the man was also very strong. At that moment, Shizuo was almost hoping that Bear died so that he'd be sent to prison. After all, that's where he belonged, with the other scum of society.

And as he thought that, the guilt he felt over the whole thing was making it hard for him to breathe, or perhaps it was the stale air in the room on this particular occasion. Sighing, he opened the windows to get some fresh air, or at least as fresh as Tokyo's air was. The problem however was the dust which had settled all over the place, including a picture of him and Kasuka from when they were kids. Kasuka looked as emotionless as ever while Shizuo himself looked annoyed. He remembered feeling that way because people are supposed to smile while having their picture taken and he couldn't do that, not when he was still feeling angry over a kid in school calling Kasuka a robot. That same kid had also called him a monster, but Shizuo didn't really care about that. What annoyed him was anyone insulting his baby brother who Shizuo knew became like that because of him. Kasuka was not a robot, but someone who loved his screw up of a brother enough to not show emotions so that he wouldn't be the cause of him getting angry.

"I'm sorry," he whispered the apology as he wiped the picture with his hand, not realizing that he was crying until a tear hit the glass shielding the picture behind. "I'm so sorry," he continued, more tears rolling down his face. "I'm sorry you became like that because of me and I'm sorry that I've been a horrible older brother to you. You took care of me when it should've been the other way. Most of all, I'm sorry that you have a good-for-nothing brother who can't find you."

***

"Please don't go," Shinra begged Celty who was once again on her way out to meet up with Ruri. "We haven't fallen asleep in each other's arms in waaay too long! We haven't even fu―" he started, but didn't get to finish because Celty's fist collided with his stomach, the powerful and unexpected blow sending him to his knees gasping for breath.

As if nothing had ever happened, Celty continued. [I'm sorry, but she's my friend and I have to help her any way I can. If I went missing, wouldn't you want someone to help you find me?]

Even as he was, on his knees trying to catch his breath, he still ended up frowning, hating how right she was. If his beloved went missing, he'd most certainly ask Izaya to help him find her, no matter how busy the man was. He would move mountains if that's what was needed to bring her back. Now understanding a bit where she was coming from, he sighed and lowered his head, feeling tired and wishing they'd find Kasuka soon so that Celty would get some free time. Between running errands for money and helping Ruri, his beloved Dullahan was rarely home anymore.

"I'm sorry," he apologized while slowly standing up and taking her into his arms. "I just miss you, that's all."

[I miss you too,] Celty revealed and then snuggled further into his arms.

The truth was that Celty doubted they would be able to find Kasuka with what they had, but her friend had been acting strangely ever since the day when she had dropped the black rose box and Celty couldn't help but think that it might've had something to do with Kasuka. Ruri had denied being upset when Celty had asked, but Celty could tell that the usual calm Hijiribe Ruri had been disturbed by something.

Reluctantly, she tore herself away from Shinra's warm body and rushed to the door, knowing that if she didn't get away from him, she might just go back and spend the entire day with him.

***

When Kasuka woke up, his fingers were finally devoid of what he assumed had been bamboo sticks that Adabashi had previously pushed deep into them, but his broken arm hurt badly enough to make him whimper pathetically when he moved it a bit to assess the damage. "It's bad," he thought despairing, realizing that it wouldn't heal properly without it being put in a cast or at least a splinter being set to hold it in the right position. That aside, he was dying of thirst. He couldn't even remember what food tasted like, but unlike water, food was not something he needed every few days to survive.

"Water," he uttered weakly, for once hoping that Adabashi was there so that the man would hear his request, but the sadist seemed to be away and Kasuka hated himself for wishing that the bastard came back soon. So he waited, counting in his head in order to get some sense of time. Unfortunately, the headache he was experiencing was so bad that it often made him forget what number he was on, the whole thing making him even more frustrated and angry than he already was. He could hardly recognize himself, all those feelings and emotions he'd kept locked up deep inside now slipping though the cracks and giving him a taste of what it was like to act like a human instead of an emotionless robot. The fact that he was biting his chapped lower lip was proof that he was losing control.

When the door finally opened and he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, he was stuck somewhere between feeling terrified over what Adabashi might do next and hopeful that the man might take pity on him. "Water," he requested in a broken voice even as his body began to tremble the moment Adabashi grabbed him roughly by the hair. "Please," this time he pretty much begged, knowing that if he didn't drink any water soon, he would really die.

"Tell me something interesting and I'll give you some," Adabashi promised, his grip on Kasuka's hair tightening even further. As expected, the still defiant pet's lips remained sealed, so he lowered himself to a crouching position and grabbed him by the broken arm, squeezing until sweet sounds of agony reached his ears. It was then when an idea came to his mind and he released the skinny arm and went up the stairs, smiling at the prospect of what he was about to do next.

Kasuka was still gritting his teeth because of the pain when the sadist came back a few minutes later. A part of him was hoping that Adabashi had brought him water, which turned out to be true, but not in the way he'd hoped. Instead of handing him a glass of water, the man poured a bucket of cold water on his head, the feeling of drowning he was experiencing at the unexpected action making him gasp for air.

"There's some water for you," Adabashi said, smiling maliciously. "You can lick it off the floor."

Kasuka felt so humiliated that he almost screamed, and yet despite how thirsty he was, he didn't move.

Adabashi shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Kasuka waited until Adabashi left before he bit into his good arm until he drew blood in a desperate attempt to stop himself from screaming. By the time he finally let go, the blindfold he couldn't take off in fear of losing his eyes was wet with his tears on top of the water Adabashi had poured on him.

***

Izaya waited until the next day before finally calling Shizuka. No matter how much he wanted to talk to her about what had happened, he didn't want to seem desperate. On top of that, the fact that she now knew who he was changed everything. If he were to ever tell her what had been done to him, then the woman would know that Orihara Izaya, and not some faceless person called Nakura, was a victim. She would know, and that was enough to make him feel nauseous.

"Fujita Shizuka speaking," she answered after the phone rang only two times.

"Fujita-san, it's me," Izaya chirped in an attempt to hide how nervous he was after a few seconds in which he couldn't find his voice.

"Ah, Nakura-san. I apologize for not answering your calls the past few weeks, but I had some personal problems to deal with," she explained.

Izaya patted a purring Yuigadokusonmaru as he fought the nervousness threatening to overwhelm him. "You really are a professional, Fujita-san, pretending not to know who I am."

"That's for Nakura-san to tell me ."

And as she said that, Izaya could almost see her smile. "I knew I'd chosen well," he declared, smirking, some of the nervousness fading away.

"I'm glad you think so, though I apologize that our first face to face meeting happened in such circumstances ."

"It's okay, Fujita-san, I'm just glad I could help," Izaya tried to reassure her since it was obvious that she felt really bad about not answering his calls. "Has that man bothered you since yesterday?"

"No, and it's all thanks to you and your friend."

"He's not my friend," Izaya made it clear.

"Judging by your tone, you seem to dislike Heiwajima-san quite a lot."

"Dislike? That's putting it mildly. I loathe him," Izaya hissed, disgusted by the idea of anyone thinking that he was friends with the beast.

"I apologize, I couldn't have known."

"No, no, I'm the one who should apologize. It's as you said. You couldn't have known." He was feeling a bit guilty for snapping at her like that, especially since she was only trying to help him, but he wasn't in the best state of mind after what he'd been through and he hoped that she would understand. "I had a few really bad days," he revealed in a tired voice.

"It's okay. I understand. Do you wish to talk about it?" she asked in a gentle voice.

"Some men kidnapped me a few days ago," Izaya started, knowing that if he didn't talk about it soon, he might never will since he had this nasty habit of burying things deep within. "A person died..."

"One of the people who kidnapped you?"

"..."

"Someone else then," Shizuka guessed but said nothing else since the man was already very difficult to talk to and she knew that pushing him even a little bit might lead to him hanging up.

"They tortured and killed a kid," Izaya hissed through gritted teeth, fingers tightening around the phone as images of what they had done to Ayato vividly replayed in his head.

"They killed a child?" she couldn't help but ask, horrified by what she'd just heard.

"He wasn't really a kid, but I called him a kid because he was acting like one and because he looked much younger even though he'd just turned eighteen," Izaya clarified, berating himself for talking without thinking and scaring poor Shizuka. "They did all of that because the kid had saved me from them a few months back."

"You think it's your fault."

"He died because he helped me."

"You're not responsible for other people's actions," Shizuka reminded him. "The kid, as you like to refer to him, helped you because he wanted to and then died because those men wanted him dead."

"He didn't deserve to die..."

"No one deserves to die for helping another person."

"You don't understand!" Izaya hissed, more out of frustration over finding it hard to tell Shizuka what had occurred right before Ayato gave his last breath. "If you knew how he died..."

"I will if you tell me, but know that it's best not to push yourself if you don't think you're ready to talk about it ."

Izaya pulled the phone away from his ear and breathed in and out a few times before he finally found the strength to utter the words. "He was stabbed and then r-raped," he said quickly and then held his breath, nervous about what she would say next. The revelation however must've been pretty shocking because Shizuka didn't say anything for a while, or perhaps she was just giving him time to calm down, as though she somehow knew how hard the whole thing had been for him. When she finally did talk, her voice was steady.

"Some things are out of our control," she reminded him, knowing that many people who had witnessed a violent act were plagued by feelings of guilt over not being able to prevent or at least stop it. "You did everything in your power to save him, did you not?"

Except answer the phone when Ayato called, he thought but kept it to himself. "It's just... it shouldn't have happened. The kid was a great fighter, and for him to end up dying like―"

Izaya abruptly stopped, heart speeding up as the sounds of someone knocking on the door reached his ears. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Someone's at the door," he told Shizuka before ending the call and standing up.

"Izaya, open up!" Shinra shouted from behind the door, switching from knocking to ringing the doorbell.

After blinking in surprise a couple of times, Izaya made his way to the door and opened it, wincing when Shinra's eyes narrowed into what he assumed was anger.

"What happened? Who did this to you?" Shinra asked as he grabbed Izaya by the jaw and proceeded to inspect the injuries. His eyes then moved to Izaya's hands and that's when he saw the bandages wrapped around the man's wrists. "So it wasn't Shizuo," he concluded since if that had been the case, Izaya's wrists would have been broken.

"Of course it wasn't Shizu-chan," Izaya mumbled as he pulled back his hands. "I trained him well. He knows better than to bite the hand that feeds him."

Shinra shook his head in both disbelief and disapproval. "So what happened?" he asked again.

"This job I did a few months ago came back to haunt me," Izaya replied with a sigh before he turned around and made his way to the couch, Shinra following after him. "Nothing you need to worry about," he added, but it didn't look like the doctor was buying it. "Maybe I should be the one asking what happened, since you showed up so unexpectedly."

Deciding that it was best to leave it be since Izaya seemed alright, besides sporting a few bruises, Shinra began ranting about his own problems.

***

"You know, you're really going to die if you keep this up," Adabashi said as he continued to pace the basement. Two days had passed since he'd poured a bucket of water on his pet and yet said pet had yet to utter a word. "Nothing? Oh well, it doesn't matter anymore. You can die for all I care."

A shiver ran up Kasuka's spine, the sadist's words chilling him to his very core. If Adabashi was bored, then he was as good as dead. A feeling of deep longing mixed with the fear that he'd never see Ruri again almost brought tears to his eyes, but he bit hard into his lower lip, barely keeping himself from breaking down.

"Ruri-chan will take your place anyway," Adabashi continued, his malicious smirk widening further when he saw his pet shudder.

"No," Kasuka uttered the word in a low, barely audible voice, as though someone had just squeezed the life out of him. "No!" he repeated, this time a bit louder. "You can do anything to me, just don't hurt her! Please!" Kasuka begged, despair and terror evident in his voice.

Adabashi stopped pacing and moved closer to better enjoy the sight of his pet begging. "Ruri-chan is the one I've always wanted."

"No!" Kasuka shouted and forced himself to stand up, his knees trembling so badly that he feared he might fall at any moment. Seeing how begging wasn't working, he switched to threatening. "If you hurt Ruri, I'll kill you!" he promised through gritted teeth.

Adabashi's mocking laughter made him even angrier, angry enough to find the strength to lunge himself at the man, taking him by surprise. He tried to take out the man's eye by pushing the thumb of his still working arm into the bastard's eye socket, but Adabashi pulled away where Kasuka couldn't reach him and then easily overpowered him, showing him once again who was in charge by kicking him until he couldn't even move anymore.

"I'm going to bring her here and chain her up on the other side of this room, so that you can hear her scream while I do to her everything I did to you and then some more," Adabashi promised as he ran a hand through his hair, breathing heavily after the effort he put into hitting the unruly pet with all of his strength.

"I'm sorry, p-please don't h-hurt her," Kasuka tried, but the man only snorted at his apology.

"How about this? You tell me why Slon hates Izaya so much and why he kidnapped you and I promise to treat Ruri-chan much better than I'm treating you. I'll even chain her to a bed instead of a wall."

The feeling of powerlessness combined with the shame of failing to protect the woman he loved was too much and he ended up crying in frustration and despair, shoulders shaking as he fought to not break into sobbing. He wanted to believe that Adabashi couldn't catch Ruri, but the sadist knew what she was and that put her at a disadvantage. If the man brought her there, Kasuka wanted her to at least not suffer as much as he had suffered at the sadist's hands. "I'll t-tell you," he said in a shaky, defeated voice, nearly choking on the guilt he was feeling over betraying the man his brother had hurt. "Izaya asked Slon to r-rape me, but he changed his m-mind and attacked him when Slon didn't want to s-stop."

"For real?!" Adabashi exclaimed in disbelief and then went silent while he processed what he'd just heard. It finally made sense why the Russian had taken Kasuka and why the man seemed to hate Izaya so much. The Informant had not only stopped him, but had also nearly killed him in the process. "So you're saying that Slon fucked you?"

"N-No!" Kasuka rushed to answer.

"Not even after he kidnapped you and took you to that cabin?"

Kasuka weakly shook his head. "Never."

Adabashi's disgusting laughter made Kasuka want to cover his ears, but he couldn't even move a finger let alone his arms after the beating he'd just received. The sadist had kicked him in the broken elbow more than once and it felt as though his entire arm was on fire. The man then went up the stairs, still laughing, and Kasuka thought he'd be left alone for a while, but Adabashi came back, grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed a glass of cold water between his lips. He drank greedily, occasionally chocking on the liquid because of how much everything hurt, especially his broken ribs.

"Good pet," Adabashi praised as he mockingly patted the actor's head. "See? If you behave, you get rewarded."

Kasuka inwardly screamed.

***

When a second rose-shaped box arrived a few days later, Ruri feared that the kidnapper had sent her another piece of Kasuka. Luckily, it was only a note containing a GPS location, a time, and the warning to come alone if she wanted to see Hanejima Yuuhei again. Anyone else would've been terrified at the prospect of meeting the kidnapper, but Ruri saw it as an opportunity to get Kasuka back. After all, behind the innocent mask of Hijiribe Ruri was none other than the monster people knew as the serial killer Hollywood, only that this time she wouldn't be wearing a mask while ripping the kidnapper to pieces.

The meeting was in two hours, which meant that she barely had enough time to get there since the place was at quite the distance away from Tokyo. Without wasting any more time, she got dressed, picked up her purse and headed straight for her neighbor's apartment to borrow the woman's car since she didn't want any of the reporters waiting outside to follow her. The kidnapper had made it clear that she was supposed to come alone and she didn't want to risk the man's wrath and get Kasuka killed in the process. She did, however, leave the note on the coffee table just in case things didn't go according to plan.

She arrived at the meeting place twelve minutes before the deadline, realizing that the kidnapper was probably watching her from afar since the GPS location led her to the middle of an empty field. There, lying on a small blanket was a syringe and a note telling her to inject the substance into her arm. The kidnapper also wrote that he was watching her and that he'd know if she tried to trick him. He also warned that if she ran away, he'd kill Hanejima Yuuhei and then send her the man's head.

Not knowing what else to do, Ruri injected the substance and hoped that her extraordinary healing abilities would be able to counter the drug. At first, it didn't seem to have any effect, but soon she started to feel dizzy and her legs gave out from under her. It's going to be fine, she told herself even as everything around her started to fade to black. I'll save Yuuhei no matter what.

***

Kasuka could endure pain―after all, it was all he knew ever since he'd been kidnapped―but what he couldn't endure was the thought of Ruri getting hurt. Adabashi had told him that he was going to get Ruri and Kasuka could barely breathe with how terrified he was at the prospect of that sadist getting his dirty little claws on the woman he loved.

The shackles were tight around his wrists and ankles, as was the collar around his neck, and yet he couldn't stop trying to free himself no matter how hopeless his struggles were. By the time the sadist came back, Kasuka was close to losing his mind.

"If you hurt her, I'm going to kill you!" he started shouting the moment he heard the door open. "I'll kill you, you hear me?"

"SHUT UP!" Adabashi roared before pulling out his switchblade and grabbing Kasuka's hand, intending to send the man's finger to Ruri.

It was only when the blade pierced his skin that Kasuka finally realized why the man appeared to be so angry. Ruri is safe. Ruri is safe! It was all he could think about even as the blade continued to cut through his flesh until it reached the bone. He didn't even care that losing a finger would most likely mean the end of his acting career as long as Ruri was safe.

"Ah, I have a better idea," Adabashi said as he pulled the blade away from Kasuka's finger. "We're going to take a picture." And as he said that, he started cutting into Kasuka's chest, laughing like a mad man.

Chapter 87: Unhallowed Grace

As Ruri slowly came back to her senses, she realized that she wasn't tied up and that she was lying on something soft. Something's wrong, she thought and slowly opened her eyes, only to jump up the moment she caught sight of Celty sitting on a chair next to what was her own bed. "No..." the word slipped past her lips in a slightly trembling voice. "What have you done?"

Celty typed her response furiously, so upset over Ruri hiding something so important that she almost dropped the small electronic device in the process. [You've been acting suspicious the past few days so I followed you to make sure everything was alright, but then I saw you collapse and I had no choice but to interfere.]

"I was going to save Yuuhei!" Ruri shouted back, the anger in her tone surprising even Celty who appeared to stiffen at her outburst.

[I know that now! I saw the note. You should've told me what was going on. I could've helped!]

"I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk Yuuhei's life. And now, because you showed up there, he's going to die. That man is going to kill Yuuhei." Her own words hit her so hard that she felt as though she was dying on the inside. "He might've already killed him..." she uttered in a hollow voice, like all life had been sucked right out of her.

The sight of Ruri overcome by hopelessness, the same Ruri who almost never showed any emotion, was enough to make Celty feel horrible over the whole thing even though she still believed that Ruri should've told her that the kidnapper had contacted her. Celty could've attached a small piece of her shadowy smoke to Ruri and then she could've followed both her and the kidnapper to where Kasuka was being held. But since she didn't know what was going on, she ended up reacting on instinct and running to Ruri the moment she saw her collapse in that field. I'm sorry, she thought guiltily.

[I'm going to leave Izaya a message and tell him to come here,] she then told Ruri who shook her head.

"No. For all I know, that man could be involved," Ruri argued.

[I doubt it. Besides, he needs to know what happened since he's also trying to find Kasuka.]

"I said no," Ruri repeated, hoping that Celty would listen to her, but the Dullahan stood up and started typing what Ruri assumed was a message to Izaya. Without hesitation, Ruri jumped off the bed to grab the phone, but her attempt failed and she had no choice but to keep trying since she didn't want even more people involved in case Kasuka was still alive.

What ensued was a fight between monsters. At first, Celty only tried to defend herself, but when she realized that Ruri was serious with each of her punches and kicks, she switched to attacking as well, realizing that she needed to restrain Ruri until the woman calmed down.

"Give me the phone," Ruri repeated as she stood over the wreckage of what used to be the coffee table. "You have no right to interfere."

[Excuse me?!] Celty typed angrily. [I've known Kasuka since he was a child. We might not have interacted much, but he was a sweet kid I was fond of. Not to mention that he's Shizuo's brother.]

"If Yuuhei is still alive, and the kidnapper contacts me, I will go to him and save Yuuhei myself," she made it clear before she jumped towards Celty, her fist missing the Dullahan's chest and crashing into the wall. That's when Celty kicked her legs from under her and Ruri fell down, narrowly escaping the other woman by rolling away and then jumping back to her feet.

[Calm down,] Celty asked of her, hoping she'd understand, but Ruri tried to kick her and Celty was forced to take out her scythe after evading the attack. A great number of shadows burst out of her neck a few moments later, all of them missing their target except for one that Celty managed to wrap around the other woman's ankle. She pulled back roughly and then used the other shadows to pin Ruri down, a task which proved more difficult than she had originally imagined since Ruri was no normal human and as such her strength was above average. As if that wasn't already bad enough, Ruri was struggling so much that she was close to dislocating her shoulder. Seeing no other choice, Celty raised her scythe and cut through Ruri, the other woman finally losing consciousness after what felt like forever.

I'm sorry.

***

After going through the files Mori Ken had left him, Izaya decided to pay a visit to a certain someone who had a reason, a motivate and the resources to kill the man's wife.

"You're going to have to leave your weapons behind if you want to see Dougen-sama," Aozaki told him.

"Of course," Izaya said before he proceeded to take out his switchblade. He handed it to Aozaki, expecting to be allowed to pass after doing what the man had asked, but the bastard proceeded to frisk him as though he was some sort of criminal who couldn't be trusted.

"Is this really necessary?" Izaya couldn't help but ask, barely suppressing a shudder the moment Aozaki touched him. The truth was that even though he was doing better, he still didn't like people touching him, especially if the touch lasted for longer than a few seconds. He knew there was nothing sexual about what Aozaki was doing, and yet he still had to close his eyes and focus on his breathing while telling himself over and over again that nothing bad was going to happen to him.

"You can go in now."

It took Izaya a few moments until his brain finally processed what the Blue Demon had said, too caught up in a memory of monstrous hands pushing him down and showing him pain. "Finally," he muttered as he opened the door and went in, trying to sound annoyed in order to hide just how terrifying the whole thing had been. Aozaki followed, the man wanting to make sure that no harm befell Dougen.

"I must confess I was surprised to hear that you wanted to talk to me, especially after the stunt you pulled with my niece. Is this about Sakamoto?" Dougen asked, curious as to why someone who had dared mess with his family would request a meeting.

Since Izaya refused to show fear in front of the Awakusu-kai leader, he sat down without waiting for permission, his lips set into a smirk. "Let bygones be bygones."

"Yes, that would be for the best," Dougen agreed after a few moments of heavy silence. While Orihara Izaya was a dangerous man, he was also extremely useful when it came to getting information. That aside, the Informant was also the one who had somehow convinced Heiwajima Shizuo to work for their organization, and that was enough to appease some of his anger towards Izaya for putting his beloved niece in danger.

"Great!" Izaya chirped happily. "With that out of the way, we can discuss the reason why I'm here."

"Indeed."

"This isn't about Sakamoto," Izaya started. "It's about a prosecutor who went after you twenty-three years ago and who got killed together with her son in a so-called accident."

"Hmm, it's been a while, but I believe I know who you're referring to. Her name was Mori..."

"Mori Kuniko."

"Ah, yes. What about her?"

"I'm going to cut straight to the subject. Did you order her killed?" Izaya asked without hesitation, knowing that it was best to ask the man himself. He could feel Aozaki burn holes into the back of his head, but at least the man wasn't saying anything.

"If I remember correctly, her kid died as well. Do you really think I'd murder a child?" Dougen asked, feeling somewhat offended by the question. "The Awakusu-kai might be criminals, but we don't kill children no matter what."

It was in the middle of Dougen talking that Izaya received a message and checked his phone, the action earning him a dangerous growl from Aozaki who had most likely seen his action as being disrespectful. The message was from Celty.

[Come to Ruri's apartment asap. It's a matter of life and death.]

"It seems that something came up and I have to go," Izaya said as he stood up. "Also, I did not mean to offend you but I figured it was best to cross out your name from the list of suspects."

Dougen nodded, pulled out his phone and went through his contacts. "Talk to this man," he told Izaya and showed him the screen. "He used to work for me before he quit his job as a police officer and moved away."

Izaya's eyes went wide when he recognized the name. "He's the one who investigated the case."

Dougen nodded. "Also, could you check on Heiwajima Shizuo? He's not answering his phone."

"Sure," Izaya agreed and proceeded to type the guy's number on his phone. Once he saved it, he thanked Dougen for the help and left the living room, Aozaki following after him.

"I can find my way out," he told the Blue Demon, hoping that the man would leave him alone, but Aozaki kept walking with him until they were outside Dougen's house.

"Let me tell you a little story. Before I started working for Dougen-sama, I used to be in another group. One day, some of the members were sent to a bakery to collect money from the owners. When they came back, not only did they not bring any money, but they looked like a truck had run them over."

"And? Where are you going with this?" Izaya asked, hoping that Aozaki would finish soon so that he could go to Ruri's place and see what it was all about.

"At first, they said some insanely strong guy beat them up, until I started asking around and one of them got scared and confessed to me that the one who had wiped the floor with them was a kid. Naturally, I thought he was pulling my leg since there was no way that a kid could beat them up, but then they were all saying the same thing and it made me curious enough to go check it out. The first time I saw Heiwajima Shizuo, he was pulling a stop sign out of concrete. That's when I knew that the kid was going to become an interesting adult."

"So what you're trying to say is that you guys don't kill kids because you never know what kind of adults they might become," Izaya concluded as he stared into the distance, wondering what his life would've been like without Shizuo in it.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Heiwajima Shizuo not only ended up working for us, but he also saved the boss' life."

"I see. It makes sense," Izaya agreed as he started walking away, but all he could think about was how much better his life would've been if Aozaki had killed Shizuo.

***

Despite the seriousness of the message he'd received, Izaya didn't expect to find a restrained passed out Ruri and a nervous-looking Dullahan when he finally arrived at the apartment.

[What took you so long??]

"Traffic," Izaya responded and gave Celty an inquiring look since the Dullahan seemed to be rather frantic. "What happened here? What's this life and death situation I should know about?"

Celty picked up the two boxes in the shape of a black rose and handed them to Izaya, but not before warning him about their contents. It wasn't that she thought Izaya would get scared that easily, but the man had been through hell and Celty didn't know how he might react.

Even though he knew what was inside the box, Izaya still ended up wincing at the sight of Kasuka's nail. He found it to be quite disturbing, which was exactly why he took the two small pieces of paper out, closed the boxes and then handed them back to Celty, not wanting to ever see that nail again. He then went over both messages, as well as a third one Celty handed him after she put down the two boxes, frowning the whole time at the sudden turn the case had taken. So the kidnapper was not only obsessed with Kasuka, but also Ruri.

[Ruri believes that the kidnapper has already killed Yuuhei,] Celty typed with shaky fingers since she was terrified at the thought of Kasuka dying because of her.

Sighing, Izaya placed a hand on Celty's shoulder and steered her in the direction of the couch where he invited her to sit down before doing the same. "How about you start from the beginning?"

***

The first thing Ruri saw when she came back to her senses was Orihara Izaya sitting on a chair in front of the couch she was lying on. She immediately tried to get up, but her arms and legs were tied up and she couldn't free them no matter how hard she'd tried.

"Are you done?" Izaya asked, tired of seeing Ruri struggle. "Also, just so you know, Celty got me up to speed with the whole situation."

"Where is Celty?" Ruri asked after finally managing to switch to a sitting position instead of lying down on the couch. She was feeling betrayed by Celty who had disregarded her request and had told Orihara Izaya everything.

"I sent her to talk to your neighbors and ask them if they've seen anything particularly strange the past few weeks," Izaya answered, eyes narrowing when Ruri actually appeared to be scared for a second before her emotionless mask fell back into place. "Why don't you want Celty to talk to your neighbors?"

After much debating with herself, Ruri finally answered. "I can't trust anyone. For all I know, one of them, or even you, could be the kidnapper."

Izaya rolled his eyes and shook his head, amazed that people still suspected him of having taken Kasuka. No matter how much he wanted to see Shizuo suffer, he had no plans of ever hurting Kasuka again. On second thought, there were a lot of things that Ruri didn't know so he couldn't really blame her for suspecting him. Even so, it didn't change the fact that it annoyed him quite a lot. "Listen, Hollywood, and I'm only going to say this once, I did not kidnap Kasu-chan. In fact, I want to find him just as much as you do."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons, one of them being that he saved me when you tried to kill me, not to mention that Shizu-chan asked me to find his brother. And I know what you're going to say, that it makes no sense since Shizu-chan and I hate each other's guts, but that's because you're oblivious when it comes to a lot of things. So instead of antagonizing me every time you see me, why don't you cooperate so that all of us can bring Kasu-chan home?"

Ruri's shoulders drooped. "He might already be dead."

"What if he isn't?"

"If the kidnapper hasn't yet killed him, then he will most likely send me Yuuhei's finger," Ruri answered, the mere thought of the kidnapper mutilating her beloved making her want to destroy her whole apartment just to relieve some of the anger she felt towards that monster.

"I think so too," Izaya agreed, "which means that at this point, Kasuka losing a finger is the best case scenario we can hope for. I mean, it beats― Ah, Celty, you're back. Did you find anything?"

[Nothing. I'm sorry.]

"It's fine," Izaya assured her. "I didn't think we'd find anything anyway but I still thought it was worth a try. Also, could you please untie Ruri-chan?"

"I won't start a fight again," Ruri told her before apologizing for having attacked her in the first place.

[What now?] Celty asked after releasing Ruri.

"Now we wait for the kidnapper to contact Ruri," Izaya answered as he stood up and took out his phone. "Meanwhile, I have to make a call, but I'll be right back," he told the two women before walking out of the living room and heading to the bathroom where he could call Shizuo and talk in peace without the two overhearing his conversation. Unfortunately, he was sent directly to voicemail. Idiot, you'd better not have killed yourself, he thought, frowning.

***

Izaya was woken up sometimes in the morning after falling asleep on Ruri's couch. The last thing he remembered was watching a movie on TV while the two women were talking in the kitchen, most likely Celty trying to convince Ruri that everything will be alright.

"I'm up, I'm up," Izaya muttered so that Celty would stop poking him. He rubbed at his eyes and then stood up, his stiff joints popping as he stretched. "What is it?" he asked the Dullahan who looked like someone had just drowned her puppy, or Shinra, in her case.

[There's something you need to see,] Celty typed, the device almost slipping from her hand after the shock she'd received mere minutes before.

Izaya took a deep breath and tried to remain calm, the uncertainty of what was to come making him slightly nervous. "Okay, show me," he finally told the Dullahan, and yet he still ended up gasping in shock when Celty showed him a picture of Kasuka that the kidnapper had posted online for everyone to see.

The picture was a twisted remake of one of the posters that Kasuka's agent had made him take in the past, the one in which a Hanejima Yuuhei with horns and wings was sitting on a throne. Kasuka appeared to be unconscious in the new picture, which wasn't that surprising considering how he looked. Leaving aside the fresh cuts on the man's chest and arms, as well as the too many old and new bruises covering most of his body, Kasuka appeared to be extremely thin, like he'd barely been fed since his capture. The picture was a bit dark, as though it had been taken somewhere inside a basement, but Izaya could still tell how much Kasuka must've struggled to free himself since the man's wrists appeared to be bleeding rather heavily behind the heavy shackles.

"The kidnapper is clearly a terrible artist," Izaya said as his eyes went over the wings and the horns drawn on the wall behind Kasuka. "He didn't even put any effort into it, since all he cared about was humiliating Kasu-chan. I mean, look at the title: 'Fallen Angel'. This guy is a monster," Izaya concluded, sounding extremely disgusted by the whole thing. Izaya himself hated Shizuo with a fiery passion, and yet doing something like that was too messed up even for him. He was okay with public humiliation, but only to a certain degree. Either way, the whole thing was fucked up enough to make him wish that he could erase the picture from his mind. "Where is Ruri?" he asked after pushing Celty's phone away, indicating that he'd seen enough.

[She ran into the bathroom after seeing the picture. I tried talking to her, but she's not answering.]

"Leave her be. She'll come out once she's ready," Izaya advised. "I'll go see Shizu-chan and tell him about Kasuka in case he doesn't know."

[I don't think that's a very good idea. I should be the one to tell him,] Celty offered, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Shizuo was going to end up destroying everything around him in a fit of rage.

"I'll be fine," Izaya assured her. "I know how to handle Shizu-chan." At least I hope so, he thought as he made his way out the door.

***

Shizuo was blankly staring into space when he heard the sounds of someone knocking on the door, but he couldn't bring himself to move a finger, let alone get up and open the door. He felt dead on the inside, defeated. He'd tried to stay strong, but the truth was that he was scared to death by what his brother could be going through at that very moment. It was all he could think about when the guilt he felt over what he'd done to Izaya wasn't eating at him like some sort of extremely corrosive acid, consuming his soul instead of his monstrous flesh.

"Shizu-chan, I know you're in there, so open the door already."

But Shizuo couldn't. He didn't want to. He didn't think he could handle seeing Izaya's face when he was feeling so dead. He simply couldn't see the face of the man he'd broken without wanting to get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness until he couldn't speak anymore.

There were new sounds, like Izaya was trying to pick the lock in order to get inside, but even then Shizuo couldn't find the strength to get up and stop him. All he wanted was to die.

"I knew you were in here," Izaya hissed in annoyance as he burst through the door a few minutes later, fingers itching to smack the dumb beast for refusing to let him in. When Shizuo didn't answer or at least acknowledged his presence, Izaya slammed the door behind him and stomped in Shizuo's direction, ready to slap the idiot if that was what it took to wake him up from the numb state he appeared to be in. "I don't have time for this," he muttered as he grabbed Shizuo by the arm and pulled him up, his efforts finally getting the beast's attention.

"I want to be alone," Shizuo pleaded since he lacked the strength to do Izaya's bidding. "I just can't."

"Are these... are these the same clothes you were wearing when we saved that woman from the stalker?" Izaya asked, his tone one of utter disbelief. "You haven't changed at all since then?"

Shizuo lowered his head, feeling ashamed.

"I see," Izaya said when his eyes fell on the photo that Shizuo was holding in his hand. "Can I see it?" he asked and held out his free hand.

Shizuo shook his head and held on to the photo tightly, not trusting Izaya to give it back.

"I'm here because of your brother," Izaya said as he lowered his hand, "but we can't talk here."

"What about Kasuka? What happened to my brother? Do you know anything?" Shizuo asked, sounding frantic. "If you know anything, just tell me!"

"I will, but not here."

"What? Why?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

Before Shizuo could ask another question, Izaya grabbed the keys and pulled him in the direction of the door, only giving him a few seconds to put on his shoes before dragging him out and locking the door behind them. "It's bad, isn't it?" When Izaya didn't answer, Shizuo's heartbeat increased, the sound so loud in his ears that he couldn't even hear the cars speeding by when they reached the street. Shizuo's gripped the framed picture tighter, the plastic cracking under the pressure without Shizuo even realizing what he'd just done. A few minutes later he was pushed into a taxi, the flea's words not even registering in his mind when Izaya told the driver where to take them.

He spent the entire way there staring at the picture, hating himself for having broken the frame with his monstrous strength. I destroy everything, he thought as he touched the plastic with his fingertips.

"Okay, we're here," Izaya announced after he paid the driver. He then got out, opened the door on Shizuo's side and pulled him out, the beast's eyes going wide when he realized where they were.

"Why here?" Shizuo uttered the question in a broken voice.

"I didn't know where else to take you," Izaya admitted.

It was Shizuo and Kasuka's special place, but also the place where Izaya had stabbed him and left him to bleed to death.

A few moments later Izaya started walking through the ruins, Shizuo following after him like a lost puppy until they reached a spot where some dry blood could still be seen, where Shizuo should have bled to death.

Just thinking about the Izaya from that day made Shizuo shudder, which was exactly why he chose to ignore what had happened there in favor of asking about Kasuka. "He's not dead, is he?" Shizuo asked in a voice so low that it was a miracle Izaya had even heard him.

"He's not dead," Izaya answered as he took out his phone, "but I think he wishes he was."

The framed picture slipped from Shizuo's fingers and broke when it hit the ground, an icy fear like he'd never felt before gripping his heart in a vice grip. Next, Izaya handed him a phone, face down, and told him not to look at it until he moved back a few steps. Shizuo listened to Izaya, mostly because he was terrified by what he might see on that screen.

"Shizu-chan, you can look at it now," Izaya told him when he realized that Shizuo was hesitating, those monstrous hands trembling as though the beast was a scared little kid instead of Ikebukuro's strongest.

"Okay," Shizuo uttered brokenly and quickly looked at the screen, his world shattering and anger and pain mixing and growing in intensity the longer he stared at the picture of a very thin and very hurt Kasuka. He didn't even know what hurt more, seeing Kasuka in that picture or in the video Izaya had shown him back when the man had tricked him into believing that his precious brother had been raped. Both are soul-crushing, he concluded just as the phone shattered in his hand and his vision went red.

Izaya recognized the signs and quickly disappeared from Shizuo's sight, knowing that he needed to put some distance between the two of them so that he wouldn't get hurt by a crazed monster. The anger might not have been directed at him, but Izaya still ended up trembling as Shizuo proceeded to destroy what was left of those ruins, the beast not stopping even when there was nothing left for him to punch. When that happened, he switched to punching the ground, over and over again until he had no strength left.

It was only then when Izaya went to him, sat down on the ground and took him in his arms, the beast breaking into sobbing after a few weak attempts at freeing himself.

"That's it, Shizu-chan, let it all out," Izaya said in a soft voice as he gently patted Shizuo's head, the beast desperately clinging to him like he was his lifeline.

This, Izaya thought with satisfaction, is what I wanted to see. To witness the beast who had crushed his soul, a beast broken beyond repair as it cried in his arms, was truly beautiful. It was what he'd wanted to see ever since Shizuo had pushed him down on the ground and fucked him like a monster. This is justice. This is perfect. And the best part was that Izaya wasn't even responsible for it.

"I'm going to find Kasu-chan and bring him back to you," Izaya promised, smirking. "And then you can kill the monster who tortured your brother and released that picture for everyone to see." Shizuo started sobbing louder, most likely not realizing until then that the photo had been released on the Internet.

Hurry up and make me your God, Shizu-chan.  After being crushed like an insect by a beast, the only thing that could satisfy him was if he became said beast's God.

Chapter 88: Shadow of a Soul

They stayed like that for a long time, Shizuo finding it hard to let go of Izaya even though he knew that the man he was clinging to was probably laughing on the inside, thoroughly enjoying his misery. He no longer cared. All he knew was that he was finding it harder and harder to go on when every waking second seemed to be an endless nightmare. For someone who could lift a car, he felt powerless when it came to most things. He couldn't find and save Kasuka and he would never be able to erase the pain he'd put Izaya through. He was a failure and a monster. He deserved to die.

"We should go," he heard Izaya say but he couldn't find within him the strength to move.

"I can't," he uttered the words in a broken, trembling voice, the opposite of how he sounded whenever he lost his temper and started breaking things. "I can't," he repeated as he went completely slack in Izaya's arms. "I don't want to."

Izaya's previously gentle caress turned violent and Shizuo couldn't help but wince when his head was pulled back roughly, the insect forcing him to meet his eyes. He rapidly blinked the tears in his eyes, his blurry vision starting to clear enough for him to see the absolute annoyance on his archenemy's face.

"Do you want to die that badly?" Izaya asked, frowning.

Shizuo nodded, knowing that he couldn't lie to Izaya when the flea could read him so well.

"I told you that you can't die until I give you permission, and I am not giving you permission to die right now," Izaya said, fingers further tightening into Shizuo's hair, hard enough to make him hiss in pain. "I want you to live a long live, a life in which you're hurting just as much as I'm hurting and then even more, so much more." He felt the beast shudder in his arms and he couldn't help but inwardly laugh at the pathetic creature he'd so beautifully tamed. "And if you dare die," he continued, his expression turning menacing, "I'll do everything in my power to bring you back and make you regret ever defying me."

At that moment, as he stared into Izaya's red-brown eyes, Shizuo had no doubts that the flea would find a way to bring him back from the dead.

***

It was around the time he'd just finished eating when Slon heard something on TV about a disturbing picture of Hanejima Yuuhei being released on the Internet. He immediately got up, grabbed the remote control and turned the volume higher, eye glued to the screen while all he could think about was how much he wished the actor had ran away instead of someone else taking him from that cabin.

Vorona, who was also there, was watching as well, though she was watching Slon more than she was watching the screen because she couldn't understand why her partner was so upset over the news. As far as she knew, Hanejima Yuuhei was nothing more than the brother Heiwajima Shizuo barely talked to. And yet Slon seemed to be upset and angry enough over the news to crush the remote control he was holding in his hand.

"Do you know Hanejima Yuuhei personally?" she asked, once again puzzled by her partner's strange behavior, but Slon shushed her instead of answering the question. The picture was shown on TV a moment later and she almost couldn't believe how shocked and angry Slon appeared to be at the sight of it.

"I'm leaving," he suddenly said as he threw the broken remote control on the couch and headed for his bag.

Vorona moved to stand in front of the door. "Please explain."

"It's personal," Slon said as he picked up the pills he'd gotten from the underground doctor.

"You're injured and the Awakusu-kai are looking for you. I advice you remain here for the time being," Vorona tried to dissuade him, but Slon seemed determined enough to leave even if that meant pushing her out of the way when she refused to move.

"I'm sorry, but there's something I have to do," he told her and went out the door, leaving a stunned Vorona behind. He knew that Vorona would probably understand and even offer advice if he told her everything, but he wasn't yet ready to tell her that he'd allowed Izaya to get into his head and pretty much manipulate him into going after the actor. For now, all he wanted to do was find Hanejima Yuuhei since no one stole his prey and got away with it.

***

It took Izaya at least another hour of holding Shizuo in his arms until the beast finally found the strength to stand up. Even then, the idiot didn't move until Izaya grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him away from there. As they walked, he found himself smiling more than once, unable to completely hide the joy he was feeling at seeing the beast looking so broken.

"Thank you," Shizuo said in a tired voice as he struggled to continue walking when the only thing he wanted to do was to disappear from existence.

Izaya turned to him, looking confused. "For?"

"For bringing me here."

"Ah, yes, of course. I had a feeling that Shizu-chan would lose control and destroy everything in sight, and I wasn't very fond of having a building fall on top of my head. I've learned some time ago not to underestimate that monstrous strength of yours."

"I'm sorry for putting you through such an awkward situation," Shizuo continued in an apologetic tone. He barely had the energy to walk, let alone talk, but he felt that it was necessary for him to apologize to Izaya. "I don't think I fully understood what I did to you until I saw... until Ayato." A moment of silence followed as he gathered his scattered thoughts, finding it hard to put words together into sentences when all he could think about was that picture of a broken-looking Kasuka. "I shouldn't have touched you like that earlier. It must've been really hard for you to... to hold me in your arms."

"Seeing you break down into pieces in front of my eyes was worth the discomfort," Izaya revealed, not at all worried about admitting it to Shizuo.

"I know, but wasn't it... scary?"

Izaya let out a long sigh, stopped, and turned to Shizuo who seemed relieved to have stopped as well. "Why are we even talking about this right now? Don't we have more important things to talk about, like, I don't know, your brother?" Izaya asked in a annoyed tone, trying to change the subject since he wasn't comfortable with talking to Shizuo about how much or how little the beast scared him.

Shizuo shook his head. "I need to know."

"I'm not scared of you, okay?" Izaya snapped and started pulling Shizuo after him again. "The kidnapper contacted Ruri-chan."

"Is she okay?" Shizuo asked and swallowed nervously since he knew that it'd destroy Kasuka if something happened to her.

"She's fine, though it seems she's been a bit shaken up ever since the kidnapper had sent her one of Kasu-chan's nails."

Shizuo suddenly felt sick and he had to stop and take a few deep breaths to calm down enough to not lose it and destroy the store they were approaching in a fit of blind rage. It's only a nail, it'll grow back, he kept telling himself as he started walking again. Unfortunately, Shizuo knew that his little brother was not alright. Kasuka might've been strong, but Shizuo knew that his apparently emotionless sibling could get hurt just like everyone else. "I'm scared," he admitted to Izaya who was now pulling him in the direction of the subway station. "Who knows what that sick fuck did to my brother?"

"You saw the photo..."

"Photo!" Shizuo exclaimed when he remembered that he had a photo of him and his little brother when they had arrived at those ruins. "I... I forgot it there. I have to go back."

Izaya shook his head, sighing. "You destroyed everything in that place. There's no way the photo remained intact. Now let's go," he ordered and started pulling Shizuo by the arm again. As expected, Shizuo tried to argue that it might not be the case, but Izaya cut him off, telling him that they'd wasted enough time and that there was no way they were going back. Shizuo didn't insist after that. They spent the rest of the way in silence, Izaya wanting to take Shizuo home already since it was dangerous for the beast to be roaming the streets.

"The subway train will be here soon," Izaya announced and tightened his hold on Shizuo's arm in case the moron thought about jumping in front of the train. At that point, he couldn't predict how Shizuo might react so it was better to be safe than sorry. He came to regret not taking a taxi even more when he heard someone on his right mention Kasuka.

"Yeah, man, I saw it. If you ask me, the little bitch got what he deserved," the man's friend answered in what sounded like a happy voice.

As soon as he heard that, Izaya turned to Shizuo, hoping that the beast wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings to hear what the moron on his right had just said, but Shizuo was wearing a terrifying expression on his face and Izaya found himself letting go of the beast's arm on instinct. He then turned to the bastard on his right again, hoping to defuse the bomb before it exploded.

The one who mentioned Kasuka's name first shook his head. "Wow, dude, you're an asshole."

"Could you please not talk about this right now? You're upsetting the people here," Izaya said and shot him a dangerous glare. Unfortunately, the man didn't seem to get the hint since he continued to run his mouth like an idiot.

"Why?" the man said and turned to his friend, ignoring Izaya. "Because I think that the bastard deserved a lesson in humility? Have you seen any of his interviews? He always has this holier-than-thou attitude I can't stand, acting all cool and shit, like he's above everyone and that nothing can get to him. Well, guess what?"

"Shut up before I shut you up." Izaya warned.

"Something, or better said, someone, got to him alright," the man continued, once again completely ignoring Izaya. "And you know what? I bet he's sucking that guy's dick as we speak, like the little bitch that he is. Hahaha! I mean, come on, dude, that shit's just funny."

"KillKillKillKillKill"

"Shizu-chan, calm down. I'll shut him up, okay?” Izaya promised the volatile beast next to him.

"Wow, you're such an asshole," the man's friend said while shaking his head in disapproval.

"Shizu-chan, don't―" Izaya tried in an attempt to stop him, but a fraction of a second later Shizuo was flying past him, the beast grabbing the idiot speaking ill of Kasuka and throwing him into the wall.

"KILLKILLKILLKILLKILL!" Shizuo kept repeating as he stomped towards his prey while the people around him started screaming and running away.

"What the fuck, man?" said prey shouted as soon as it could talk again.

"I told you to shut the fuck up!" Izaya hissed at the moron and grabbed Shizuo by the arm in an attempt to stop him from reaching the guy, but the beast growled angrily and pushed him away. Izaya swallowed nervously and thought about trying to stop Shizuo again, but the truth was that an angry Shizuo was scary and he didn't want to risk getting hurt because of an idiot. Perhaps it was best to just leave Shizuo beat the shit out of that guy.

"What the fuck do you know about my brother, hah?!" Shizuo growled the question.

"Huh? What the fuck are you on about, you crazy son of a bitch?" the man shouted in anger as he stood up and raised his fist.

"Don't talk shit about my brother when you don't even know him!"

"You're cra―!"

Shizuo swung his fist before the man could finish, the sounds of bones breaking followed by the man's screams bouncing off the walls.

"I'm going to kill you! I'm going to fucking kill you!" the man promised once he was done screaming and he could talk again.

"I think he's had enough!" Izaya told Shizuo when the beast grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him into the wall. "You're going to kill him at this rate."

"Maybe he deserves to die," Shizuo said in a hollow voice and raised his fist, seriously thinking about running it though the man's skull.

"P-Please d-don't kill me!" the man started begging when he realized in just how much danger he was since he couldn't free himself, but instead of stopping, the hand around his throat squeezed tighter. "W-Why are you d-doing t-this??"

"You said that my little brother deserves what's happening to him right now," Shizuo said and punched the wall, the action making the other turn white with fear. "You laughed at the idea of someone forcing themselves on my brother," and as he said that, the little sanity Shizuo had left slipped away, leaving behind the incarnation of wrath that was Ikebukuro's monster.

"Y-Y-You're that Yuuhei g-guy's brother?" the man asked in a terrified chocked voice, finally making the connection.

"Shizu-chan, just stop, okay?" Izaya told him once again when he saw that Shizuo was still not lowering his fist. If Shizuo killed the guy, then the beast would go to prison for murder and that wasn't something Izaya wanted since he wouldn't be able to see his archenemy further break before his very eyes. "Shizu-chan...?" Seeing how the beast continued to ignore him, Izaya decided he'd had enough and grabbed Shizuo by the arm and neck to pull him away from the nearly passed out man, but that didn't go as planned and he ended up with a bloody nose when the beast tried to shake him off and accidentally elbowed him in the face.

"You idiot!" Izaya hissed, eyes scrunched up in pain.

Shizuo released the man he had been chocking until then and rushed to Izaya, rage melting away and being replaced by guilt for having hurt the one person he never wanted to hurt again. "I'm so sorry, flea! I didn't mean to. Here, take my arm," he offered since Izaya appeared to be unsteady on his feet.

Izaya slowly opened his eyes and took the offered arm, relieved to finally see Shizuo no longer looking like he was about to kill someone. "I think you broke my nose," he announced with a frown and then started pulling Shizuo after him since he had a feeling that the police would arrive soon. Shizuo looked like he still wanted to go back and break a few more of that guy's bones, so Izaya grabbed him by the hair and forced him to look into his eyes. "If you take one step towards that guy, so help me, I will stab you in the face," he promised, eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

"Fine," Shizuo mumbled and followed Izaya out of there, but not before giving the fallen man one last look so that he could burn the bastard's face into his memory and finish what he'd started if he ever ran into him again.

"I should've called a taxi," Izaya said, more to himself than anyone else. "I should've known that humans would jump at the opportunity to make fun of someone else's misery. Anyway, it'd be best to change the subject, don't you agree?" He then waited until Shizuo nodded before continuing. "Dougen is asking about you. I'll call Shiki-san and tell him you'll go back to work in a few days. You could use a distraction."

Shizuo nodded again, thinking it was best to listen to Izaya since he didn't know what else to do with himself. He already felt like shit for hurting the man. "You should go see Shinra."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Izaya agreed and tipped his head backwards to hopefully stop the bleeding. His shirt was a mess and so was the jacket, but he refused to let something like that ruin the great day he'd just had. After all, how often did one get the chance to see Ikebukuro's strongest break to pieces?

***

Shinra couldn't help but shake his head in disbelief when Izaya showed up at his door, smiling like an idiot even though he appeared to have a broken nose. "What are you so happy about? Shouldn't you be crying about how much it hurts or something like that?"

"Ah," Izaya exclaimed as though he'd forgotten about the broken nose. "This is nothing, don't worry about it," he chirped and waved in dismissal.

"It doesn't look like nothing. What happened?" Shinra asked again as he handed Izaya a couple of painkillers and proceeded to check the damage despite Izaya's protests. "This better not be Shizuo's fault," Shinra muttered since every time Izaya got hurt, he couldn't help but suspect Shizuo.

Izaya let out a nervous laugh. "Well, actua―"

"Okay, I see," Shinra said as he took out the scalpel from the pocket of his coat and proceeded to inspect it. "I think this needs some sharpening before I leave."

"I can't let you do that," Izaya said right before he grabbed Shinra, pushed him down on the couch and then pinned him there by grabbing both of his wrists. "Let go of the scalpel," he ordered the doctor who was still holding on to it.

"I gave him my word that if he hurts you again, I'm going to perform a vivisection on him," Shinra revealed.

Izaya had to admit that Shinra's smile was pretty fucking disturbing, but he wasn't about to let him go. "Aww, you'd torture Shizu-chan for me?"

"I already have, more than once," Shinra reminded him and was about to tell him once again to let go when Izaya released his wrists, plopped down on the couch and rested his head against Shinra's chest, not at all worried about staining the white coat with blood. Sighing, Shinra raised his arm and placed it around Izaya's shoulders. "What's up?"

"I'm happy," Izaya whispered softly and cuddled further into Shinra's warm embrace.

"And why is that?"

"Because I saw with my own eyes how Shizu-chan broke into a million pieces. I held him in my arms as he cried and I enjoyed every second of it."

Shinra had an idea about why Shizuo was most likely having a mental breakdown. He too had seen the photo circulating online. "You're such a weirdo."

"I guess I am."

"Why don't you explain it to me so that I may understand?" Shinra requested in a calm voice, knowing that it was best to let Izaya rant when the man was in such a good mood.

"It's that feeling of power."

"Power?"

Izaya nodded. "Back then... I... I felt so powerless."

"There was nothing you could’ve done," Shinra reminded him.

"I know. There was nothing I could've done," Izaya repeated since he couldn't help but sometimes think that he should've fought harder or at least tried harder to find a way to dissuade Shizuo from going through with it. "But that's exactly it," Izaya continued, really wishing that Shinra would understand. "From having no power to having a lot of power over Shizuo is like taming the beast that had ripped you to pieces. The feeling is... exhilarating."

"I won't presume to know how you feel, but I think I have an idea what you mean. I too have experienced that feeling of powerlessness when Adabashi attacked me, but unlike you, I don't want to be anywhere near that sadist no matter how much I want to start slicing into him. I don't know how I'd react if I ran into him by accident. That guy scares me," Shinra confessed, shuddering at the memory of what that man had done to him. Izaya suddenly jumped, startling him. "Are you okay? What is it?"

"Adabashi..." Izaya uttered the name before repeating it again, louder this time. "Adabashi!!"

Shinra stood up as well. "What?" Instead of answering, Izaya thanked him, gave him a quick hug and then ran out the door, leaving a stunned Shinra behind. "What just happened...?"

***

Kasuka woke up screaming and thrashing on the bed, still stuck in the memory of Adabashi cutting into him.

"Shit," Adabashi cursed and grabbed Kasuka's shoulders, trying to immobilize him. "Stop moving or you'll end up losing the little blood you have left. Oi, you hear me?" he hissed in annoyance. The whole thing was pissing him off because he wasn't in the mood to bandage the actor again. One time was more than enough. The only reason he'd even done it in the first place was because the man looked like he was about to die and Adabashi couldn't allow that since he was still far from being done with him.

It took Kasuka a while until he calmed down enough to realize that he could see and that he was lying on something soft instead of the cold hard floor of the basement. His eyes hurt after wandering in the darkness for so long, but even through the tears he could still see Adabashi's face, the man looking extremely annoyed and angry. The sadist was saying something, but Kasuka couldn't hear the words over the sound of his violently beating heart. "What?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"I said, I can send you back to the basement now, or I can finish bandaging you before taking you back there," Adabashi repeated. "Either way, if you try anything funny, I'm going to make what I did to you earlier seem like a walk in the park. Do you understand?"

Kasuka nodded slowly and continued to blink rapidly, still trying to get accustomed to the light. It felt as though it'd been forever since he'd last seen anything, trapped in the darkness while time flew past him. Despite how much everything hurt, he still tried to calm down enough to come up with a way to overpower Adabashi so that he could make a run for the door. His wrists were still in heavy shackles, but his neck and ankles were free and Kasuka knew that if he didn't find a way to escape before being taken back to the basement, he would surely end up dying in that place. Unfortunately, there was nothing around that he could use to hit Adabashi with, which meant that he'd have to use his own body to knock the sadist away from him.

"You weren't supposed to wake up yet," Adabashi mumbled, sounding extremely annoyed.

Kasuka said nothing. Instead, he watched the man carefully, waiting for an opportunity to attack. His best bet was to kick Adabashi in the face as hard as he could, but he had to wait until the man finished bandaging his ankle since he didn't want to risk tripping on the fabric. And that's exactly what he did, he waited and when Adabashi reached for the shackles, Kasuka kicked him in the face, the man stumbling backwards while holding onto his face.

"Motherfucker!" Adabashi growled.

Driven by fear more than anything else, Kasuka pushed himself off the bed, several sounds of agony slipping past his lips when his knees hit the floor and he ended up falling forward, some of his weight now resting on the broken arm.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," Adabashi promised as he fought to regain his balance. The kick to the head left him dizzy and he was having a hard time getting the room to stop spinning around him.

With some effort, Kasuka managed to stand up and walk out of the room, body trembling from both the pain and the terror he was experiencing at the thought of what Adabashi might do to him if the man caught him. Outside the room was a long hallway with several doors on both sides, but Kasuka chose to ignore them in favor of the stairs he could see at the end of the hallway. He started walking as fast as he could, but there was a lot of debris on the floor, including broken glass, and he had to be careful not to step in it if he wanted to have any chance at getting out of there.

"You can't escape," Adabashi told him as he walked out of the room, holding onto the wall.

A shudder went up Kasuka's spine and he almost froze in fear, but he pushed past it and bent down despite the pain in his broken ribs and sliced chest so that he could grab a piece of broken glass. "S-Stay back," he warned and raised the piece of glass he was holding.

Adabashi laughed. "What you gonna do with that, hah?" he asked, sauntering in the direction of the frightened prey that was Hanejima Yuuhei. The man looked so weak that Adabashi couldn't even take him seriously.

"Just l-let me go," Kasuka stuttered, trembling in fear as he continued to retreat towards the staircase.

"Oh, I see," Adabashi said and stopped. "Since you seem to be in the mood for games, let's play a game. I'll count to sixty and then I'm coming for you."

"W-What?" Kasuka asked, his tone one of disbelief mixed with bone-chilling fear and a little bit of hope.

"One," Adabashi started, smirking. "Two. Three."

It was then when Kasuka snapped out of the shock and headed in the direction of the stairs, Adabashi's loud voice echoing throughout the empty building and amplifying the fear Kasuka was experiencing. He managed to reach the second floor from the fourth one when Adabashi reached fifty. Overcome by panic, Kasuka rushed to the nearest room, hoping to find a place where he could hide.

"Sixty. Ready or not, here I come~”

Unfortunately, the door was locked. Kasuka tried the next one and managed to get in, his hopes of finding a way out of there getting crushed the moment he saw that this room too had barred windows, just like the one he had woken up in.

“Nononono,” he kept uttering desperately as he checked two more rooms.

“I can hear your footsteps,” Adabashi announced from somewhere up the stairs. ”You’re not very good at hiding.”

Not knowing what else to do, Kasuka entered one of the rooms as quietly as he could, closed the door behind him, hid beneath the dusty old bed in the corner and pulled the sheet down so that Adabashi couldn’t see him if he walked in. His lower lip was bleeding again because of how hard he was biting into it to stop the sounds of pain threatening to spill and he couldn’t stop trembling to save his life, but at least he was trying to escape and that beat waiting around to get killed by a sadistic monster.

“Maybe you’re in here?” Adabashi said as he entered the first room that wasn't locked. “I hope not, since I'm just getting started.”

Kasuka could hear Adabashi’s footsteps, the man kicking stuff out of his way and moving furniture around, every sound scrapping on Kasuka’s already fried nerves.

“I’m going to hit you with this until you pass out once I find you,” Adabashi promised as he started dragging what Kasuka assumed was the metal pipe he’d seen earlier but chose not to pick up because he didn’t have enough energy to hold it in his hand.

By the time the footsteps stopped in front of the door leading to the room he was in, Kasuka was seriously considering slitting his own wrists if he failed to bring Adabashi down. If he was to die, he preferred it to be by his own hands. The door creaked open and Kasuka felt his heart stop when the bastard walked in, dragging the metal pipe after him.

“I’m thinking you could be inside the closet,” Adabashi said right before he walked over to it and kicked in the doors. “Guess not.”

Kasuka’s heart nearly stopped again a moment later when Adabashi’s next words reached his ears. “I know you’re in here though; I can hear you breathing.”

Immediately, Kasuka used the back of the hand in which he was holding the piece of glass to cover his mouth. He could only hope that Adabashi hadn’t heard the slight rattle of the shackles, but the man was walking towards the bed, still dragging the pipe, and Kasuka knew that he had no choice but to injure Adabashi any way he could before the man found him.

“I can smell your fear.”

Kasuka’s eyes followed Adabashi’s shoes, his weak trembling hands ready to stab the bastard as soon as he was close enough. Now, Kasuka thought and tried to drive the piece of glass into Adabashi’s lower leg, but the sadist must’ve expected some sort of attack because he jumped backwards before the improvised weapon could reach him. The sudden movement was too much for his broken arm and ribs, the few seconds it took to get past the pain giving Adabashi enough time to swing the pipe and violently hit Kasuka’s forearm. He screamed, the piece of glass falling on the floor and breaking into shards.

“Looks like I found you,” Adabashi said as he bent down and grabbed him by the wrists, knowing how much it hurt the actor. "I told you that you wouldn't be able to escape. This place used to be a sanatorium. It was built to keep people in." He roughly pulled him out from beneath the bed, thoroughly enjoying the agonizing sounds his prey was making at having his broken arm tugged like that. “Before I beat the shit out of you, I want you to see this,” he said and took out the phone from the pocket of his pants.

Kasuka was having a hard time hearing what Adabashi was saying because of the sounds of pain he couldn’t contain, but it didn’t matter because the screen of a phone was shoved in his face and he could see the displayed image even through tear-filled eyes. “No...” he uttered brokenly.

“I sent this to Ruri-chan.”

“Nonono!”

“And then I released it on the Internet for everyone to see.”

“NO!” Kasuka screamed in despair at the thought of his parents, especially his mother seeing him like that. I can never go back to my old life, he realized. I can never go back.

“Now that you had your little fun, it's time to pay the consequences," Adabashi stated before he raised the metal pipe he was holding and began hitting Kasuka with all of his might, enjoying the agonizing screams he had the pleasure of hearing before the actor lost consciousness. "It's time to go back to the basement, where you belong," he then added as he grabbed Kasuka by the ankle and started dragging him out of the room and down the hallway.

Chapter 89: Headway

Izaya was looking forward to getting home and calling Shizuka, not expecting to find Kururi waiting outside his apartment.

"Yuuhei-san, photo," she whispered as her much smaller hands grabbed his jacket and softly pulled on it, ignoring the fact that her brother had a bloody nose since it wasn't that unusual for Izaya to get into fights.

"Everything will be okay," Izaya promised. "Your nii-san won't rest until you and your sister get to have that dinner with Hanejima Yuuhei." Kururi appeared to slightly relax after hearing his words, but she was still pretty worried about what might happen to her favorite actor. "Hey, do you want to come in?" he offered, but his little sister shook her head and released his jacket.

"Mairu, worried," she explained and waved good bye before giving Izaya one last glance and turning around, hoping that her brother would be able to find Yuuhei before it was too late.

Izaya watched her until she stepped inside the elevator, softly shaking his head as he fished for his keys. You must really like him a lot, huh? A feeling of jealousy suddenly spiked and the very human part of him wished that his sisters cared about him more than they cared about an actor they had only met a few times. Kururi hadn't even asked him about his bleeding nose. That's what you get for telling them that they were copies of each other and therefore have no real purpose, Izaya reminded himself as he pushed the door open and walked inside the apartment.

On the bright side, it meant that he could call Shizuka in peace since he needed her professional opinion. "Bathroom, now," he decided just as he was about to sit down in his desk chair. As much as he'd enjoyed seeing Shizuo break, the whole thing had drained him of his strength and he was looking forward to lying down in bed and resting for a while. Sighing, he made his way up the stairs, took off his clothes and got into the shower, the day's events replaying in his mind as he absentmindedly fiddled with the faucets until he got the water temperature just right. Even so, he still ended up hissing when the water hit his face, the sound being followed by a string of curses directed at a certain idiot who couldn't control his temper. And as he thought about Shizuo and his eyes caught sight of the blood on his hands, he couldn't help but remember that fateful night when the beast had made him bleed.

Don't go there, he told himself as a shudder ran up his spine, but despite the fact that there was hot water pattering his body, he still couldn't help but shiver for what felt like forever before the tremors finally stopped. The bitter laugh he couldn't contain echoed throughout the bathroom, the whole thing reminding him that no matter how many times he saw Shizuo in pain, it didn't change the fact that he would still have to live with what happened. He was broken and that was never going to change. A feeling of rage overtook him and he banged his fist against the wall, fresh pain flaring up his arm and making him hiss. He took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm down, all the while reminding himself that he should be celebrating his victory instead of brooding over things he could not change.

He proceeded to angrily rinse his face even though it hurt, and then the rest of his body, no longer wishing to think of the past. Instead, his thoughts focused on Adabashi and the steps he needed to take in order to catch the bastard. As much as he disliked Kasuka, the man did not deserve to get tortured and then humiliated like that in front of the whole world. Someone like Kasuka, who was both intelligent and a very good fighter, was leagues above Adabashi, which made it hard for Izaya to understand how the sadist had been able to overpower the emotionless freak. As things were, Izaya couldn't wait to get his hands on Adabashi and slice the bastard a few times before handing him over to the police, hopefully before Shizuo ended up doing something stupid like taking his own life. Frowning, he got out of the shower, put on some clothes and went downstairs to make the call.

"Hello?"

"Fujita-san, I was wondering if you have a few minutes since I need your help with something," Izaya asked since it wasn't around the time he usually called her.

"I'm free right now, so go ahead."

"You know about Hanejima Yuuhei, right?" he continued, glad that he could finally rant about his theory with someone.

"Yes, I watch the news."

"I have an idea about who might have taken him," Izaya revealed before he proceeded to tell her everything he knew about Adabashi and his obsession with Hijiribe Ruri. He left out some parts though, like Ruri being the serial killer Hollywood, as well as Izaya himself trying to get Shizuo to kill Adabashi, since he didn't think the information was relevant to the discussion. He also told her about the notes and the kidnapper's failed attempt to get his dirty little claws on the singer, ending it with what the sadist had done to Shinra.

"I see," Shizuka said in a calm, professional tone even though she felt disgusted by what she'd heard. "It does sound like he might have been the one to take Hanejima Yuuhei, though I don't understand how he was able to overpower the man. From what I've gathered from your story, Adabashi Kisuke is not someone who would risk a direct confrontation with Hanejima Yuuhei because of how much of a coward he is and because Hanejima-san is a much better fighter."

"Yes, that is strange," Izaya agreed with a sigh. "The blood the police found at the scene belonged to Yuuhei only which means that the man wasn't able to do any significant damage before the kidnapper took him down."

"The kidnapper could've hired someone to do it for him," Shizuka suggested.

"That makes sense," Izaya mused as he reclined further into his desk chair. "Hanejima Yuuhei isn't someone who could be taken down in a fight by the likes of Adabashi Kisuke. The reason why I didn't suspect him right away was because the man was in a pretty bad shape last time I saw him and because I didn't think he was smart enough to pull off a successful kidnapping. He seems more like the type who would take advantage of a situation instead of going through the trouble of planning things out to get what he wants."

"Indeed, he does seem more of an opportunist," Shizuka agreed, "but I've learned a long time ago not to underestimate people."

"In conclusion, is it your professional opinion that Adabashi Kisuke could've taken Hanejima Yuuhei?"

"Yes, there's a high probability, based on what you have told me."

"I see. Thank you for your help, Fujita-san. "

"No problem. I'm glad to have helped."

"Enjoy the rest of your day," Izaya said and was about to end the call when his therapist spoke again.

"Nakura-san, wait!"

"What is it?" Izaya asked, wondering if Shizuka had more to say about Adabashi.

"How about you, Nakura-san, how are you doing?"

Izaya blinked in surprised a few times, not expecting the woman to ask him about his well-being since he'd called her outside work hours. "I'm... I'm good," he answered, not knowing what else to say without revealing too much. He was not yet ready to talk about that night.

Shizuka sighed softly. "That's not saying very much now, is it? Could you be more specific?"

"The man who hurt me..."

"Yes?"

"He... he's suffering so much right now."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"It makes me feel better."

"Is that all?" Shizuka pressed, sensing that there was something more to it.

After hesitating a bit, Izaya took a deep breath and answered. "No, not really, I'm also kind of upset knowing that no matter how much he breaks, his suffering will not erase the pain he put me through," Izaya admitted as his fingers tightened around the phone.

"That's exactly why you have to focus on healing instead of taking revenge. If revenge is the only thing on your mind, you won't be able to heal properly."

"I haven't gone out of my way recently to make that monster suffer," Izaya concluded after giving it some thought. "Nowadays I prefer to jump at an opportunity if and when it arises. I guess that right now I want to heal more than I want revenge."

"That's very good. It means that you're on the right path."

A soft sigh slipped past Izaya's lips. "I hope so."

"Until the next session, why don't you try to think of three things that have improved for you lately instead of focusing on the bad things in your life?" Shizuka suggested.

Izaya almost laughed because his life had been hell ever since, but then he remembered his earlier talk with Shinra and how nice it had felt to rest his head on top of the man's chest and he couldn't deny that his friendship with Shinra had improved since that night. "I'll try," Izaya promised before ending the call.

Slowly, he got up, intending to go get some sleep, but a loud meowing sound stopped him in his tracks. "Aww, I'm sorry, Doku-chan," Izaya apologized as he picked up the cat and made his way to the kitchen. "I wonder if Kasu-chan ever forgot to feed you..."

"Meow!"

"I bet you miss him, don't you?" Izaya continued as he watched the cat eat. "If we ever find him, you're going to want to go back to him, won't you?" Chuckling, Izaya gave the cat one last glance and made his way up the stairs, looking forward to lie down and get some sleep.

***

It was starting to get dark outside when Shizuo rushed out of his apartment, trying to hold back the tears he could feel prickling at his eyes. He'd made the mistake of answering his phone, thinking it was Shiki, only to be met with the sounds of his mother crying and despairing over Kasuka. It was like a punch to the gut and he didn't know what to say, so he mostly remained silent as she'd cried and cried and cried for what seemed like forever before the phone finally broke in his hand and he threw it into the wall, pieces of plastic flying across the living room.

He aimlessly walked through the streets for a long time, the sounds of his mother crying haunting him just as much as the picture of a very broken and tortured Kasuka he'd seen earlier that day. The first time he'd seen his mother cry was when he'd broken his bones while trying to throw the fridge at Kasuka, but back then he couldn't comprehend why she was crying as though she was the one whose bones had been broken. He understood after a while, but by then she was crying not only because he was hurt but also because she couldn't understand why her previously normal son couldn't control his temper and always got into fights.

"Why can't you be more like your brother?" he remembered her asking him one day, but he couldn't answer the question any more than he could control the blinding rage that took over whenever he got angry.

"Poor Yuuhei," someone to the right of Shizuo said as he waited for the light to go green so that he could cross the street. "I hope the police will find him soon."

"Me too," the other woman said in a sad voice.

Shizuo, whose hands balled into fists the second he heard his brother's name, relaxed a bit, grateful that they weren't mocking Kasuka like that asshole he'd ran into at the subway station since he feared what he might do next time he heard someone laugh at his brother's suffering. It was then when he realized that he badly needed a distraction before he lost his mind since he couldn't stop thinking about all the horrible things Kasuka might be going through at that very moment, so he change direction and headed towards the subway station, hoping he would be able to reach his destination without hearing more people talk about his brother.

***

Awakusu Dougen was reading a book when one of his men knocked on the door and told him that Heiwajima Shizuo had shown up at the gate, asking if they had anything for him to do. Dougen placed the book on the coffee table and turned to the man awaiting his instructions. "Send him in."

"Thank you for seeing me," Shizuo said as soon as he walked in.

"My home will always be open to the man who saved my life," Dougen assured him with a gentle smile. "Please take a seat," he then half-ordered, half-requested since it looked like the young man before him was one step away from breaking into a million pieces.

"I don't need... I... I just need to do something," Shizuo tried to explain but talking was difficult when all he wanted to do was break things.

"Take a seat." This time, it had been an order and Dougen expected the man to comply.

Even though sitting down was the last thing he wanted to do at that very moment, Shizuo did just that, brows furrowed in annoyance as his fingers twitched with the need to inflict violence so that he could relieve some of the pain he was feeling.

Once Shizuo had sat down, Dougen called for one of his men who was waiting outside and asked him to bring some tea for his guest. He then turned to Shizuo. "Tell me about your brother. What kind of person is he?" Dougen could tell that his question had taken the other man by surprise since light brown eyes opened impossibly wide and the man appeared to have frozen instead of looking extremely agitated as he did mere moments before. He figured that sending the volatile man before him out on the streets would be a very bad idea since such an incursion might end with innocent people getting hurt.

Normally, Shizuo would beat to a bloody pulp anyone who asked him about Kasuka, especially those leeches who called themselves reporters, but Awakusu Dougen was not one of them and he could see that the man genuinely wanted to find out more about the person who was his little brother and not the actor Hanejima Yuuhei.

"My brother is a really good person," Shizuo started. "The best," he then added, his voice trembling with emotion. Despite not knowing Awakusu Dougen too well, he ended up telling the man everything he could remember about his brother, starting with stories from when they were kids and ending with Kasuka doing everything he could to keep the woman he loved safe from a psycho stalker. By the time he was done, the cup of tea he'd received was empty and he was feeling calmer than when he'd walked into that house.

"Your brother sounds like an extraordinary person. I hope to have the opportunity to meet him one day," Dougen said, but his comment appeared to have upset his guest because the other man's expression turned into one of anguish. "You're afraid that you might not see him again," he guessed.

Shizuo nodded.

"You mustn't lose hope. Your brother needs you now more than ever."

"You haven’t seen―"

"I have," Dougen confessed. "There's someone trying to find out where that photo came from as we speak."

Shizuo's eyes widened and he stared at Dougen for a while until he finally snapped out of it and bowed his head, thanking the man for offering his help in the matter.

"Now go home. You look like you could use some rest," Dougen suggested, not failing to notice how pale the other man was. "I'll make it an order if I have to."

Shizuo reluctantly agreed and then walked out of the man's house, thinking it was best to go home after all. He chose side streets and alleyways, hoping to avoid people as much as possible since he feared what he might do if he heard someone speak ill of his brother.

***

Vorona was one hundred percent in a bad mood as she made her way to Tanaka Tom's apartment, her mind set on telling him that she was done working as his bodyguard. She'd come to enjoy the time she spent with the man, especially since it involved beating up people, but her priority was finding Slon which meant that she could no longer afford to play bodyguard. She also no longer cared about gathering information regarding Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya for a man who didn't even trust her enough to tell her what was going on and why he'd changed so much ever since he'd lost his eye. I'll just have to make him tell me, she thought and then suddenly turned around and assumed a defensive stance, startled by the sudden noise of a metal pipe being dragged across concrete only a couple of steps behind her.

"My name's Aozaki," the man said, joints popping as he balled his right hand into a fist. "You know why I'm here, right?"

She knew because she'd done her homework before the assassination attempt on Awakusu Dougen. "You're a fool," she said as her eyes narrowed into slits. "An executive of the organization, showing up alone so boldly in front of someone like me?"

“Oh, no, I’m not that stupid, unlike that moron over there,” Aozaki replied, smirking.

Vorona followed Aozaki’s line of sight and that’s when she saw the man crouched down on her left, loosely holding a cane and looking completely relaxed.

“That’s harsh, Aozaki-san,” the man said and finally looked up at her, his devilish smirk earning him a surprised gasp from the woman they’d been sent to capture. “I only came here because I’d heard that one of the perps who’d tried to kill Dougen-sama was a gorgeous foreigner. My name’s Akabayashi, and just like that gorilla-looking old man over there, I’m one of the top Awakusu-kai dogs. Nice meeting you.”

Aozaki snapped his fingers and a third man walked out of the alley, gun in hand and ready to shoot her if she moved a muscle, but before she could even come up with a plan of escape, Akabayashi grabbed her by the arm and twisted it behind her back, the man taking advantage of that one second her eyes remained glued to the gun as she tried to come up with a way to avoid getting shot while running away.

“It makes me so happy to get a chance to dance with such a beauty,” Akabayashi said as he twisted her arm to near breaking point. Next, he dug the fingers of his other hand deeper into her shoulder and used his strength to pull her off her feet and then throw her down on the ground, finishing the whole thing with stomping his foot on her right shoulder. "Now go to sleep," Akabayashi said as he pulled out a syringe and emptied its content into Vorona's neck, the drug knocking her out almost instantly.

***

Izaya made his way to Onishi's apartment early in the morning because he knew how much the man hated being woken up at the crack of dawn. He knocked on the door a few times and then rang the doorbell, certain that Onishi was home since the guy barely left the apartment. The man didn't even go buy food himself but had a neighbor buy it for him.

"Open up!" Izaya shouted as he banged his fist on the door, tired of being kept waiting.

There was a loud thud, like someone had tripped over something and fell, followed by a string of curses as the man made his way to the door.

"Finally," Izaya said and that's when Onishi must've realized who was at the door because the man suddenly went silent. Even so, he still opened the door, most likely knowing that pissing off Orihara Izaya would be a bad idea.

"I'm so sorry!" Onishi began as he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor, hoping to appease the Informant. "I know I shouldn't have traced your location for Heiwajima-san, but from what he'd told me, it sounded like you were in danger. He also sounded really worried and I didn't get the impression that he was lying."

Izaya frowned at the idea of Shizuo being worried about him but figured that finding Adabashi was more important, so he placed his foot on Onishi's back and stepped over him, smirking when he heard the man groan. "I need you to find someone for me," he said as he approached the man's computer.

"Anything you want, Orihara-san," Onishi assured him. He slowly stood up and made his way to the desk, face scrunched up in pain over being stepped on.

Izaya himself was struggling to maintain a neutral expression, only realizing what a terrible idea his little stunt had been when pain flared from his injured ankle and spread up his leg like wildfire. "I need you to find Adabashi Kisuke for me," he told Onishi as he sat down on a nearby chair, glad to relieve some of the pressure on his ankle.

"Orihara-san, is that blood??" Onishi screeched, sounding alarmed as he jumped to his feet and grabbed Izaya's left hand.

"Ah, I must've opened my wounds when I banged on your door," Izaya replied in an indifferent tone and pulled back his hand, not liking the fact that Onishi had touched him. "I'll be fine."

"I have some bandages if you need. I can change them for you," Onishi offered.

"I said I'm fine!" Izaya snapped, his outburst scaring the man into running back to his computer.

"So who did you say you wanted me to find?"

"Adabashi Kisuke," Izaya repeated as he pulled the sleeve of his jacket lower to cover the bandages and closed his eyes, wishing that he'd gotten a bit more sleep.

"I think I've seen this guy before," Onishi mused once he found a picture of the man.

Izaya stopped rubbing his eyes and turned his attention to him. "What? Where?"

"I'm not one hundred percent sure that it was him, but this guy in a hood showed up at my door about two or three weeks ago, gave me a phone number and asked me to trace it down for him."

"Where was the location?" Izaya asked, sounding impatient.

Onishi stopped typing and rubbed at his chin, looking pensive. "I think it was somewhere in the mountains, but I can find out for sure. Let me see... Ah, here it is!" he exclaimed.

Izaya stood up and approached the desk, eyes widening when he recognized the location as being the one where Kasuka had been kept. "Good job!" he praised and gave the man a pat on the back. "Now I need you to find him." Knowing that it might take a while, Izaya sat back down on the chair, mind going in overdrive trying to understand why Adabashi would pay a hacker to find that cabin. "Who did that phone number belong to?"

Onishi shrugged. "No idea. It was a prepaid phone."

Izaya's frown deepened, now certain that a second person was involved.

"I'm sorry," Onishi apologized a few minutes later, startling Izaya who seemed to be deep in thought. "It's like he disappeared from the face of the Earth three and a half months ago."

"Look again," Izaya ordered.

"If he uses his registered phone and credit card I can trace him, but until he does, the guy is a ghost. I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about it."

"Fine," Izaya muttered unhappily as he stood up and made his way to the door. "Call me as soon as you find anything."

"I will!" Onishi promised, smiling, but his smile disappeared when Izaya turned around and shot him an icy glare, those brown, almost red-looking eyes freezing the blood in his veins.

"Hack me again and I'll make you beg for a quick death," Izaya warned.

The hacker dropped to his knees and apologized again, but Izaya ignored him and walked out the door, knowing that Onishi would not dare betray him a second time.

***

Shizuo was still in bed when he heard a knock on the door followed by Izaya's voice demanding he'd be let in. Worried that something bad must've happened, like a new photo being released, he jumped to his feet and nearly ran to the door, not realizing that he'd forgotten to put a shirt on until he noticed how startled Izaya appeared to be by the sight of his naked torso. "I'm sorry. I'll put something on right now. Come in."

Izaya walked in and mindlessly closed the door behind him, unable to tear his eyes from the many bruises littering the beast's body, bruises he himself had inflicted mere days before. It was almost beautiful, the power he had over a monster who could easily rip his body apart with barely any effort.

"Why are you here?" Shizuo asked as soon as he emerged from his bedroom.

"I see now why you haven't been answering your phone," Izaya commented, sounding amused, as his eyes roamed over the broken pieces of what used to be beast's phone.

"Did something happen?" Shizuo asked impatiently, the need to know winning over the fear of being told some bad news.

"You could say that," Izaya replied as he turned to Shizuo, smirking. "I know who the kidnapper is; well, at least one of them anyway."

"Who?" Shizuo asked as he shortened the distance between himself and Izaya. "I know you want to drag this for as long as you can so that you can see me agonize over it, but I'm at my limit here and I don't know if I have the power to remain calm when my brother's life is at stake," Shizuo warned, making it clear that he was not in the mood to play games.

"Oh? So what are you going to do if I refuse to talk, beat it out of me?" Izaya mocked, his expression turning terrifying since he didn't like being threatened. "You know what happened last time you tried to get me to say something."

Shizuo stared into the brown-red eyes for a few moments and then lowered his head and ran a hand over his face, knowing there was no way to win when it came to the flea. "That's not what I meant. I just... I need to know. I'll let you do whatever you want to me afterwards, just please tell me what you know," Shizuo practically begged.

"Close your eyes," Izaya ordered and Shizuo complied, willing to let Izaya beat him to a bloody pulp if that was what it took to get the name of his brother's torturer. He expected a punch to the face or at least one to the gut if not a switchblade slash across his chest, so he couldn't have been more surprised when Izaya flicked him on the forehead, sighing and calling him an idiot.

"It's Adabashi," Izaya revealed the name and that's when Shizuo's eyes flew open, the murderous fury in them almost making Izaya flinch. He kept his ground though, knowing that such fury was not directed at him but at the idiot who thought that he could hurt the beast's brother and get away with it. "I believe a second person was involved in the kidnapping, but I have no idea who that person might be."

"I need to be alone," Shizuo said weakly as he turned around and headed in the direction of the bedroom. "Please," he then added before he closed the door. It's my fault this happened, he realized as he sat down on the bed and pulled at his hair, eyes wide and body trembling with barely restrained fury. None of it would've happened if he'd just killed Adabashi when he had the chance. He would've gone to prison for murder, but it wasn't like he didn't belong there after the horrible things he’d done.

Outside the bedroom, Izaya took his spare phone out the pocket of his jacket and placed it on Shizuo's coffee table, knowing that the idiot would probably not bother to buy a new one. "I'll see you later, Shizu-chan," he said and walked out of the apartment, debating whether or not he should share his findings with Hijiribe Ruri.

***

Vorona couldn't be sure how much time had passed since she'd been captured, but she guessed that it couldn't have been more than a day. So far, nothing had been done to her in that basement, but she doubted that would last much longer since Akabayashi looked more and more annoyed with each new visit. Speak of the devil, she thought when she heard the door open, expecting to see the Red Demon.

"That idiot is too soft when it comes to beautiful women," Aozaki said once he stopped in front of her, giving the chains a look-over to make sure that she hadn't somehow managed to free herself. "Who was the man you attacked Dougen-sama with?" Aozaki asked, not wasting any time in starting the interrogation.

Vorona, who was sitting on the floor, ignored the man towering over her. She would not betray Slon no matter what they did to her.

Aozaki grabbed her by the hair and roughly pulled on it, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "I want a name."

"I do not know his name," she said and hoped that Aozaki would believe her lies. "But he calls himself The Mummy. All I know is that he's an American assassin who's new at the job."

"Go on," Aozaki said, easing his grip on her hair.

"The only reason why I even teamed up with him in the first place was because my old partner died and because I needed the money," she said, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

"Nice story, but I don't believe you," the Blue Demon said as he wrapped his hand around her neck and started chocking her, hoping to make her understand that he wasn't playing around and that he would really hurt her if she kept lying.

"That's enough," Akabayashi said as he walked in just as Vorona was starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen.

"You can't treat the daughter of our new business partner like that," Akabayashi teased, enjoying the look of surprise on Aozaki's face. "If she were to get killed on our turf, then we'd have a problem, right?" he then added, waiting for the man outside to show himself.

"Egor," Vorona uttered in shock once she’d stopped coughing.

"It's been a long time," the man said as he walked past Aozaki and stopped in front of her.

"This Egor fellow was the one who approached me, you see. Your old man and the president of the weapons company asked if, in return for giving us priority on their weapons deals, we would pretend we never saw you.”

"I refuse!" Vorona shouted, giving Akabayashi a hateful look. "If you're going to kill me, then do it! My life has no meaning if I inspire such pity!"

Akabayashi laughed, amused by her antics. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I hope to see you around sometimes. For now, good bye," he said and walked out of there, Aozaki following after him.

"I'm not going with you!" she made it clear, but Egor ignored her, pulled out a syringe and injected her with it, knocking her out almost instantly.

"You're going to be just fine," he promised as he picked her up. “Simon and Dennis will take care of you.”

Chapter 90: Descent into the Depths

Shizuo spent the whole day trying to figure out what was the best way to find Adabashi. He had no doubt that Izaya was already on it, but Izaya was only one man and Shizuo was certain that a lot more people needed to get involved if they wanted to find that psycho bastard before it was too late and Kasuka ended up dead. He had a feeling that not even the police was enough since more often than not people refused to talk to them even if they knew something related to an ongoing investigation. What he needed was some criminals going around breaking bones and cracking skulls until someone finally talked.

That's why, the next morning, Shizuo went to Dougen to ask for help, but the man made it clear that he couldn't spare any of his men until they found Sakamoto and got rid of him once and for all.

"I do have a proposition for you," the Awakusu leader offered. "If you can get one of his men to talk and then find and bring Sakamoto to me, I will do everything in my power to find Adabashi Kisuke."

Shizuo stood up, immediately making up his mind. "I will find Sakamoto no matter what," he promised and then followed Akabayashi who led him to the place where the Awakusu had two Blood Hounds members locked up.

"They're all yours," Akabayashi said as he sat down on a nearby chair, looking forward to seeing how Heiwajima Shizuo went around getting one of their enemies to talk.

Shizuo nodded, raised up his sleeves and turned to the two men. The one on the right shot him a defiant look in response, letting him know that he had no intention of cooperating. "I've never done this before," he confessed as he approached the man on the left who kept his head down. "I've never tortured someone for information." He then walked to the second man, crouched down in front of him and stared him in the eyes. "But I've broken a lot of bones in my life."

The man snorted in response, a little show of defiance he was able to muster after already losing two of his fingers and knowing that he wouldn't get out of it alive even if he told them what they wanted to know. "I don't know anything, but even if I knew, I still wouldn't tell you."

Shizuo's frown deepened, not because he was annoyed by the response but because the man looked familiar. "Have we met before?" he couldn't help but ask as he rubbed his chin, looking pensive.

The man shrugged. "Who knows, I too have broken a lot of bones over the years. I'm Ohno, and since I told you my name, it's customary that you tell me yours as well."

"Heiwajima Shizuo."

"Ah!" Ohno exclaimed in surprise, glad to find out that he was dealing with someone he could easily anger. "I didn't recognize you without your bartender uniform and the blonde hair. Hey, how's that friend of yours with the glasses doing?" he continued, hoping that he would piss off the man enough to be granted a swift death instead of the torture he knew awaited him at the hands of Ikebukuro's strongest or the Awakusu-kai.

"You're one of those assholes we fought that day in high school when the Blood Hounds tried to capture Izaya," Shizuo finally realized when the man mentioned Shinra. He still recalled being chased around by the Yakuza because of some shit Izaya had done and also the four of them barely escaping thanks to Sakamoto Ryo warning them about the danger. Back then they'd managed to avoid most of the men sent after them, but they had still run into a few of those bastards, one of them being Ohno.

"It's a shame I couldn't get my hands on him that day," the man continued, the grin he was displaying almost splitting his face in two.

"What are you trying to say?" Shizuo asked in a dangerous tone, hoping that he'd misunderstood the words coming out of the bastard's mouth.

"I was looking forward to have those lips wrapped around my dick," Ohno clarified, still grinning, but the grin faltered when he was suddenly grabbed by the throat and slammed into the wall behind him, nearly blacking out when the back of his head made contact with the hard surface. "Actually, y-you know w-what?" he continued once Shizuo’s grip loosened a bit. "Once I g-get out of here, I'm going to p-pay him a visit."

"Shut up!" Shizuo shouted as he pulled the man back and slammed him into the wall again, hoping to silence the bastard before he really ended up killing him. "I'll fucking kill you! Kill you! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

"Gonna fuck him hard and fast-"

Seeing that the situation was getting out of hand, Akabayashi interfered. "Okay, that's enough," he declared as he poked Shizuo in the ribs with his cane. "Back.Off."

Shizuo pulled back, body shaking with rage and breathing heavily, while Ohno crumpled to the floor, laughing and coughing.

"Gonna make him c-cry like a little b-bitch, and then-"

"I said that's enough!" Akabayashi said and kicked Ohno hard in the face, knocking the man out. He then turned to Shizuo, knowing that he needed to calm him down. "You can't let him get to you. He only said those things because he was trying to get a rise out of you so that you would give him a quick death."

Shizuo nodded weakly even though he was certain that Ohno had meant every word, and quickly left the room, hoping to calm down enough to not break the man's neck once the son of a bitch woke up. As soon as he got outside, he pulled out a cigarette with shaky hands, lit it up, took a lungful of smoke and started pacing around, wondering what to do now that Ohno turned out to be a danger to Shinra.

"You should try the other guy," Akabayashi suggested as he stepped out of the building.

"Yeah, I will," Shizuo agreed as he turned around and headed back inside, wanting to get it over with as soon as possible. "You," he growled as he approached the one on the left and grabbed him by the arm. "Where is Sakamoto?"

"I honestly don't know," the man said in a trembling voice, knowing that within seconds, his arm would be broken. Just as he'd predicted, the pressure on his arm suddenly increased and the bones snapped, his shrill echoing throughout the mostly empty room while pain rippled from his arm with every breath he took. "I don't know, I swear!" he tried again and his words were followed by another shrill when the one called Heiwajima Shizuo broke his wrist. "I'm n-new!” he tried to explain between the sounds of pain he couldn’t suppress. “I only joined b-because my mother is sick and I n-needed money, I swear!” he explained with tears in his eyes. “I was desperate!”

Taken back by the honesty in the man’s voice, Shizuo released the now broken wrist and took a step back, feeling utterly horrified by what he’d just done. He then turned to Akabayashi who had been silently watching the whole thing, and spoke in a slightly shaky voice. “I think I’ll wait for the other guy to wake up.”

“We can try to dump a bucket of water on him,” Akabayashi suggested and waited until Shizuo left the room before he walked up to the whimpering man.

“Please, I don’t know anything!” the man said again and crawled further into the corner of the room. “I don’t want to die! Please don’t kill me!” he begged with tears in his eyes as he trembled in terror. A moment later Shizuo came back with a bucket of water and he breathed in relief, knowing that they’d be too busy with his fellow Yakuza member to worry about him.

“Wake up, bastard!” Shizuo growled as he dumped the bucket of water on the unconscious man.

Ohno woke up with a start, struggling to breathe through all the water being dumped on his head.

“Now let’s continue,” Shizuo said as he threw the bucket somewhere to his right and grabbed the coughing man by the arm, pulling him up to his feet. “There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. How many do you think I’ll have to break before you finally talk?”

Ohno spat in Shizuo's face, the grin back into place. “I’m not scared of dying. I’ve lived a great life. I had lots of fun. Besides, everyone dies sooner or later,” he said, shrugging.

Shizuo wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, grabbed the man’s hand and squeezed it really hard, crushing some of the bones in one go. “I don’t think you’ll ever be able to use that hand again,” Shizuo said as he grabbed the wrist next. Ohno was giving him a wild look while struggling not to scream, most likely finally realizing just how screwed he was.

“Fuck you!” Ohno hissed and then finally caved and screamed in pain when Shizuo broke his wrist.

“Where is Sakamoto?” Shizuo asked as he grabbed the forearm next.

“Fuck―” Ohno never got to finish because Shizuo broke the bones in his left arm and he couldn’t help but scream as the pain nearly made him black out again. “Fuck you!” he shouted once he could breathe again and then screamed even louder than before when the bone of his upper arm snapped in two.

“That’s probably fifteen bones I just broke. Do you want me to continue or would you rather tell me where Sakamoto is?” Shizuo asked as he grabbed the man’s right hand, telling himself that he was doing this for Kasuka and that he couldn't stop no matter how disgusted he was with himself for torturing a man for information, even if said man happened to be someone like Ohno. Luckily, he could see the panic on the man’s face, and knew that it wouldn’t be much longer before the guy finally talked.

"I'd talk if I were you," Akabayashi advised.

"Why would I?" You're going to kill me either way. At least like this, I won't betray my boss."

"If you don't talk, Shizuo here will break all the bones in your limbs; but he won't kill you. He'll only make sure that you'll never be able to use any of them again," Akabayashi promised.

"Okay! Okay!" Ohno hissed as he instinctively tried to free his hand out of Shizuo's grip. "He's got a girl in Kabukicho's Red Light District. She goes by the name of Kiyoko."

Akabayashi took out his phone and called Aozaki, asking him to come pick up Shizuo and then go find Sakamoto. "Let's wait outside," he then told Shizuo who looked rather pale.

"What are you going to do with them?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask once they were outside the building. He sat down on the stairs, suddenly feeling exhausted.

"You don't need to worry about that," Akabayashi told him and then offered him a cigarette.

"Are you going to kill them?" Shizuo asked as he took the offered cigarette and lit it up. "The guy with the sick mother doesn't seem like such a bad guy."

"Like I said," Akabayashi repeated, this time his tone taking on a dangerous edge, "that's not something you need to worry about."

Reluctantly, Shizuo let it go, once again telling himself that he was doing it for Kasuka because his little brother didn't deserve to die at the hands of a psycho stalker, and if helping the Yakuza so that he could get help in return was what it took, then so be it.

***

It was late at night when the Awakusu-kai finally managed to locate the place where they knew Sakamoto was hiding after finding and interrogating the woman Ohno had mentioned.

"Go in and bring him out," Aozaki told Shizuo as he gestured for him to go in.

Shizuo nodded and went into the building, wanting to get it over with as soon as possible. He didn't even knock on the door and simply broke the handle and went in, cursing under his breath when the man jumped out the window before he could grab him. He jumped down as well and started chasing the man through the streets, not noticing that the man had a gun until they reached a dark alley and Sakamoto turned around, smirking as he pointed the weapon at him. Shizuo froze in his tracks, heart beating wildly inside his chest at the prospect of dying before he could save his little brother.

A fraction of a second later a bullet went through Sakamoto's head, some of the blood landing on Shizuo's face. He watched horrified as the body collapsed on the ground, the man's opened eyes now staring blankly into space.

"Good job," he heard Aozaki say as the Blue Demon gave him a pat on the back. "Now get in the car."

But Shizuo couldn't, not when it felt as though his legs were made out of cotton and the feeling of nausea was so strong that he could barely stop himself from emptying the content on his stomach right then and there. He might've been in a lot of fights before, but he'd never seen someone getting shot in the head before his very eyes.

"You two get the body," Aozaki ordered before he turned to Shizuo, realizing that the man was most likely in shock. "We have to get out of here," he told him as he grabbed him by the arm and led him to the car. A few minutes later Sakamoto's body was inside the trunk and they were on their way to Tokyo River where they were going to dump the body so that they could be done with the whole Blood Hounds problem once and for all.

They were almost there when Aozaki took out a tissue and handed it to Shizuo. "Wipe the blood off your face."

Shizuo took it and did as he was told even as a fresh wave of nausea assaulted his sense. Unfortunately, the idea of wiping someone's blood and brain matter off his face was too much and he ended up throwing up on the sidewalk after desperately asking the driver to stop the car. He'd barely stopped heaving when he was pulled back into the car, Aozaki giving him a harsh look.

"Pull yourself together," he said as he handed him another tissue.

"You didn't need me for this," Shizuo hissed, giving him a wild glare and pushing the man's hand away.

"That's true, we didn't need you," Aozaki admitted. "You really thought we couldn't get the information out of those two we'd captured last night?"

"Then why?"

"Because this is the stuff you're asking my men to do to find Adabashi Kisuke. If you're not willing to go this far to find your brother, then you don't deserve the help of the Awakusu-kai," Aozaki made it clear.

Not knowing what to say to that, Shizuo turned his head to the side and stared out the window, trying to make sense of things, but then Aozaki spoke again and Shizuo's hand shot towards the Blue Demon, grabbing him by the throat. "What did you say?" he growled even as the muzzle of a weapon was pushed against his head.

"I said where is the kid who would destroy a bakery and everyone in it in an attempt to protect the owners of that place?" Aozaki repeated, smirking.

"How do you know about that?"

"Those were my men," Aozaki revealed, grinning.

"That woman ended up in the hospital," Shizuo shouted in anger as he punched the window with his free hand, cutting his arm in the process.

"We're here, boss," the driver said as he slowed down the car.

"Yes, this is the look I wanted to see," Aozaki told Shizuo, "but we don't have time for this right now, so how about we continue after we get rid of the dead body in the trunk?"

Shizuo reluctantly released his grip and got out of the car, not even noticing how badly he was bleeding or that he had a big piece of glass embedded in his hand until he lit up a cigarette. "Shit," he cursed and pulled it out, more blood streaming down his arm. He took a lungful of smoke and stared at the sky, trying to ignore the sounds behind him as Aozaki's men got rid of the body.

"Time to go," Aozaki announced a few minutes later.

Shizuo threw the cigarette on the ground, crushed it beneath the sole of his shoe and was about to turn around and go back to the car when a Police Officer showed up, pointing a gun at him and asking him to raise his hands.

Aozaki slowly shook his head, letting his men know that they were to do nothing since they couldn't afford to kill a cop nor to be caught carrying a gun.

"Officer, how may we help you?" Aozaki asked the much younger man.

"Start by telling me what you are doing here this late at night and why he's bleeding."

"He has a bit of an anger issue right now. We stopped here so that he could get some fresh air after he broke the car's window," Aozaki said with a sigh. "I don't blame him though, seeing what he's been going through."

"Explain."

"Have you ever heard of Hanejima Yuuhei?"

"Who hasn't?"

"That guy over there is his brother," Aozaki said as he pointed to Shizuo. "He's been really upset ever since he saw the picture of his brother that the kidnapper released on the Internet."

The Officer gave him an incredulous look.

For the first time since the police officer showed up, Shizuo spoke. "I really am Yuuhei's brother. Check online if you don't believe me. The name's Heiwajima Shizuo."

The man slowly took out his phone and typed in the name, eyes going wide in surprise when he saw some of the photos the reporters had managed to take of Hanejima Yuuhei's brother. "I apologize," the man said as he lowered the gun.

"It's fine," Shizuo assured him. "You were just trying to do your job. I can only hope that your colleagues will find my brother before it’s too late."

"I'm sure they will do everything in their power," the man said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work."

They all waited with bated breaths until they were sure the police officer was far away. The driver then turned to Aozaki. "It's a good thing he showed up after we threw the body in the river."

Shizuo approached the car, intending to get in, not expecting to get grabbed by the back of his head and violently shoved face first against the hood of the car.

"Don't ever fuck with me again unless you're prepared to kill or be killed," Aozaki warned before he released his grip and got into the car, leaving a stunned Shizuo behind.

It took Shizuo a few more seconds until he pushed himself off the hood of the car, finally realizing just how dangerous the Awakusu-kai were. He wiped the blood off his nose and got into the car, thinking that it was best to listen to Aozaki if he didn't want to end up in the river with Sakamoto.

***

When Sawazaki called and told him to meet him in front of the building because they were going somewhere, Izaya didn't know what to make of it. He tried to push aside the fear that he might get arrested and went to meet the man, not expecting to find Shizuo sitting on the back seat of the car.

"Where are we going?" Izaya asked as he moved to open the front door, but the detective stopped him and motioned for him to sit in the back since apparently there were some flowers lying on the front seat. Izaya reluctantly sat down next to Shizuo, not even bothering to greet him. Shizuo on his part seemed to be too busy with whatever was going on in his head to even bother acknowledging his presence, but that suited Izaya just fine since he wasn't really in the mood to talk. He did, however, find it curious that the beast's left hand was bandaged.

"You'll see when we get there," Sawazaki answered and started the car.

The ride was spent in silence, with Shizuo staring out the window while Izaya tried to guess where they were going based on the direction in which the car was heading. He hoped that he'd been wrong in his assertion, but unfortunately he'd been right and all he wanted to do was leave once they arrived at the cemetery. Even so, he reluctantly followed Sawazaki through the gates, his urge to run out of there increasing with each new step he took.

"Here it is," Sawazaki said and placed the flowers he'd brought inside the vase. "I thought you two might want to know where he's buried."

Izaya felt sick as he recalled Ayato's last moments, but managed to utter a weak thank you anyway.

Shizuo ran a hand over his face, he too also recalling how the kid had died.

"Bear woke up," Sawazaki dropped the bomb, still not taking his eyes off the funerary stone, "which means that you'll most likely not go to prison."

A feeling of relief washed over him, but it was quickly drowned by the anger Shizuo felt at the thought of that monster being alive.

"We also couldn't find anyone willing to testify that you, Orihara-san, and Shiki Haruya were ever at the apartment building from which Yamashita Rikuto disappeared."

Izaya said nothing, knowing that words were meaningless when Sawazaki already knew the truth. He was simply glad that Shiki had taken care of it since the last thing he needed was to end up in prison as an accomplice to murder even if the only thing he’d done was to show the Awakusu-kai where they could find the man.

"Even though you were responsible for his death, I still hope that you'll visit him sometimes," Sawazaki requested and then walked past the two men, hoping to one day find a way to make Orihara Izaya pay.

"Your fault, all your fault! Everything is your fucking fault," Shizuo recalled telling Izaya, but he knew how untrue that statement had been. "It wasn't your fault," he said as he turned to Izaya. "You're not responsible for other people's actions."

The dark laughter he received in response only served to remind Shizuo just how much he'd messed Izaya up.

"You really have changed, Shizu-chan. You're no fun anymore, but I think that right now I prefer this you over the beast who left me to die in that alley,” Izaya admitted.

I'm sorry, Shizuo thought, but kept it to himself since he knew how much Izaya hated those words. I'm so sorry.  Light brown eyes fell on Ayato's grave and a shiver ran down his spine at the thought of Izaya having died that night. No matter how much the flea was going to hurt him in the future, Shizuo was certain that he would never again wish for Izaya's death.

***

After having been captured by the Awakusu-kai and shown just how weak she was, Vorona no longer knew what to do with herself. Tokyo is a strange city, she thought as she stood in the corner and watched people walk in and out of Russia Sushi. Not only did this city have an actual monster in it, but also someone like Heiwajima Shizuo who was human but who had incredible strength. To top it off, there were men like Akabayashi who had proven to be strong enough to take her down. As if on cue, the man walked in, smiling at her and then saluting Dennis before sitting down at one of the tables. He then motioned for her to sit down with him, but Vorona was still too upset about the whole thing to even consider such a thing.

"You really should talk to him," Dennis advised her, and Vorona only followed his advice because he was someone she respected. Numbly, she sat down in front of the Awakusu-kai Executive, only slightly curious about what he had to say.

"I'm glad to see you're doing well," Akabayashi said after giving Simon his order and then continued when his comment was met with silence. "You know, I'm as evil as the next man, but even I wouldn't have been able to sleep well at night if I had to torture and then kill a beauty such as yourself. You see, torture and negotiations aren't really my thing, but I'll do it if I have to."

"Don't look so surly," Dennis told her while working on preparing the food. "You're going to scare the customers."

"I refute that," Vorona said as she turned to Dennis. "My face is not in the shape of a scowl. It's the same as usual."

"Your scowl may not show, but it's there," Akabayashi chimed in before adding in a more serious tone. "You probably thought that the Awakusu-kai were nothing more than a half-assed group when compared to your group which turned you guys into soldiers and mercenaries. I don't deny that, but even so, it's better not to underestimate us."

I'm weak, Vorona thought as she stared at the man in front of her. Could everything I've done till now be meaningless? If that's the case, then there's no point in living anymore.

Right at that moment the door opened and Shizuo walked in.

"Wow, Shizuo, welcome!" Simon greeted.

"Yo," Shizuo greeted back and then walked up to the table where Akabayashi was waiting for him. The man moved closer to the window and motioned for Shizuo to sit down as well.

"Vorona, it's been a while," Shizuo said, forcing himself to smile.

"You two know each other?" Akabayashi asked, sounding surprised.

"She works with Tom-san," Shizuo answered for her since it didn't look like Vorona was too eager to talk. In fact, he couldn't even understand why she was sitting at the same table as the Awakusu Executive.

Vorona suddenly stood up. "I have to go."

"Try not to get too carried away," Akabayashi advised.

"What was that about?" Shizuo asked after he stood up and then sat down in Vorona's seat.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," Akabayashi made it clear.

Shizuo shot him a dangerous look, letting him know that he was not to mess with Vorona. "Why did you call me here?" He asked after a while when he realized that Akabayashi was not intimidated by his glare.

"There's somewhere we need to go, but first, we eat."

Simon brought them the food a few minutes later and they ate in silence, Shizuo struggling with each piece of fish since everything seemed to taste like ash. It felt like forever had passed by the time he was done eating, so after paying for the food, he rushed out of there and lit up a cigarette. It wasn't like cigarettes tasted any better, but indulging in his vice was the only thing he had left that calmed him down a little. "Where are we going?" he asked as soon as Akabayashi walked out of Russia Sushi.

"We're going to see an old acquaintance of Adabashi Kisuke."

Shizuo chocked on the smoke and then started coughing, surprised that the Red Demon himself would help him out with this. “Do you think he knows something?”

“I have no idea, but we’ll soon find out.”

Ten minutes later they were in front of the apartment, Shizuo breaking the handle and bursting in while Akabayashi calmly walked in, dragging the cane after him.

“Who are you? What do you want?” the man shouted as he brandished a knife.

“Where can I find Adabashi?” Shizuo growled the question as he cracked his knuckles, letting the other know that he wasn’t messing around.

“I haven’t talked to him in a while, but even if I knew where he was, why would I tell you?”

“Because if you don’t, Heiwajima Shizuo here is going to break your arms,” Akabayashi answered.

“Heiwajima Shizuo? Ha! You don’t look like much,” the man said, smirking. “Weren’t you like dead or something? You look like shit, not strong at all. You’ve become irrelevant. No one even fears you anymore.”

“I can still break your arms,” Shizuo replied in an annoyed tone, only now realizing just how much the city and the people in it had changed over the past few months.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” the man said and charged forward, not expecting his attack to be countered by the man who was with Heiwajima Shizuo and for him to be thrown down on the ground so easily.

“Seriously, kids these days!” Akabayashi said with a sigh as he brought down his foot on the guy’s throat.

Shizuo kicked the knife away. “Akabayashi-san, I’ll take it from here.”

The Red Demon removed his foot and stepped back. “He’s all yours.”

A moment later Shizuo stomped on the man’s upper arm, the action earning him a shrill of agony when the bone broke. He then grabbed the man by the throat, pulled him up and threw him into the wall, hoping that it was enough to get him to talk.

“I d-don’t know where h-he is now,” the man said in a trembling voice as he cradled his broken arm, “But I can give you the names of some people who might.”

Both Shizuo and Akabayashi took out their phones, wrote the names down, then left the apartment, but not before Akabayashi warned the man about talking to the police.

“Why is an Awakusu-kai Executive helping me out?” Shizuo asked once they were out of the building.

“I’m a fan of Hijiribe Ruri. Besides, you’re one of us now.”

An Awakusu-kai member, huh? Shizuo thought, still in disbelief over the whole thing. It was as Aozaki had said though. “If you're not willing to go this far to find your brother, then you don't deserve the help of the Awakusu-kai.” That’s why, when Dougen had congratulated him for his success and told him that he was now one of them, Shizuo couldn’t find it within himself to argue otherwise. “I’m grateful for your help,” he told Akabayashi as they crossed the street, heading towards the location where the first person on the list resided.

***

Eight days after his encounter with Dougen, Izaya finally had the full picture of what had taken place the day Mori Ken’s family died.

“Did you find the killer?” the man asked.

“It was an accident,” Izaya revealed, his eyes fixed on the long black handbag the man was clutching in his hands. After a few more seconds he tore his eyes away from it and looked him in the eyes. “A drunk driver lost control of the wheel and hit the back of your wife’s car, thus propelling it into the truck driving on the opposite lane.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked, his eyes wide with shock because he couldn’t believe that it had truly been an accident.

“I’m sure. I talked to the officer in charge of the case. He feels really bad about what happened and said that the only reason he buried the investigation was because his wife was sick and he needed the money.”

“Who was the drunk driver?” Mori Ken asked through gritted teeth.

“His name was Miyamoto Kenji.”

“Was?”

“He died in a car accident a year later.”

Mori Ken laughed bitterly. “What a horrible guy.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.”

“It’s fine. I’m grateful for all your help. Please accept this as payment,” Mori Ken said as he handed Izaya the item he’d brought with him.

Izaya opened the zipper, his expression one of awe as he stared at the work of art that was the katana he was holding in his hands. “I can’t accept this."

“I was waiting for you to tell me his name so that I could go and kill him with this sword, but since he has already left this world, I want you to have it.”

“I can’t,” Izaya said and shook his head. “This precious thing, I can’t accept it.”

“It’s already yours,” Mori Ken said before he turned around and walked out the door, leaving a stunned Izaya behind.

“Beautiful,” Izaya mused a few minutes later after standing up and unsheathing the blade. It felt heavy in his hands since he was used to carrying switchblades, but he couldn’t deny that it felt amazing to swing around such a powerful weapon. One of Mori Ken’s ancestor’s must have been a Samurai, he concluded. He had to admit that he respected the man for being willing to kill someone with a katana to avenge the death of his family. Mori Ken, I never imagined that you could be such an interesting person. Humans never cease to amaze me.

He carefully sheathed the sword, placed it on the desk and picked up the phone, thinking it was about time he called his therapist.

"Nakura-san, it's good to hear from you."

"I thought about what you said last time, but no matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn't find three things that improved in my life since that day."

"How many did you find then?"

"Two."

"And what are those two things?"

"The first good thing is that I've gotten closer to a guy I went to school with. I couldn't call him a friend before, but I think that I can do that now," Izaya revealed with a smile as he recalled how protective Shinra had been the past few months.

"That's very good. I hope that you two will remain friends for a long time."

"I hope so too," Izaya said as his eyes drifted over to the place where he kept Celty's head.

"What is the second one?" Shizuka asked when the silence dragged for too long.

"I met an interesting human I enjoy playing chess with. He gave me a katana earlier as payment for helping him with something."

"He must've been really grateful to give you such a precious thing."

"He was," Izaya said as he ran his fingers over the handle of the sword. "This weapon is truly amazing."

"I'm sure it is. Did anything happen since the last time we talked? You sound a bit upset," Shizuka remarked.

"I visited the kid's grave and I can't stop thinking that I could’ve died that night. The thought of no longer existing is terrifying," Izaya revealed in a slightly shaky voice. "I can't imagine not existing while the monster who left me to die would go on living."

"You need to stop thinking of what could've happened. You survived and that's what matters."

Izaya knew that and yet he couldn't help it.

***

After the meeting with Mori Ken and the talk with his therapist, Izaya decided to pay Shinra a visit. He'd realized, while talking to Shizuka, that he hadn't talked to the doctor in a while and that he missed the man's usual antics.

He was waiting to cross the street when he heard Shizuo's voice calling from somewhere behind him. The corners of his lips quirked upwards into a smirk and he was looking forward to tease Shizuo over joining the Awakusu-kai. It was not the outcome he'd wanted but he couldn't help but laugh at the irony that someone who claimed to hate violence had ended up joining the Yakuza.

A few moments later Shizuo entered his field of vision and Izaya's smirk disappeared, a feeling of nausea and utter terror spreading throughout his entire being like wildfire. He took a step back on instinct and then another, the sight of Shizuo looking exactly as he did that night bringing back vivid flashbacks of the monster who had broken his bones and shattered his pride.

"Flea...?"

"Stay back," Izaya uttered in a shaky voice. The bartender uniform, the dyed hair, the sunglasses, almost everything was the same besides Shizuo's expression; it showed concern. The hateful glare might not have been there, but Izaya still turned around and darted in the opposite direction, the irrational need to get away so strong that it felt as though he was suffocating. Shizuo wasn't even following after him, and yet Izaya kept on running for a long time until his legs finally gave out from under him and he nearly collapsed on some stairs, panting heavily.

Stupid beast, he though as he struggled to get more air into his lungs. Why did you have to go back to that look?

Chapter 91: Caught in a Web

Once the fear ebbed away, shame was the only thing Izaya felt as he made his way to Shinra's apartment. He still couldn't believe that he'd ran away at the mere sight of Shizuo dressed like his old self; or maybe he could, but it still didn't change the fact that he felt utterly pathetic. Idiot, he berated himself as he ran a hand over his face and then knocked on the door, looking forward to spending some time with Shinra and hopefully forget, if only for an hour or two, about Shizuo and his stupid look. He could only hope that Shinra wouldn't notice that something was off.

"Who is it~?"

"It's me," Izaya announced with a sigh.

"What happened?" Shinra asked, eyes narrowing as they roamed over Izaya's form to make sure that the man was not hurt. In the past, he wouldn't even had bothered to ask, but after everything that had happened, he couldn't help but worry every time Izaya was looking down since he feared what an unstable Orihara Izaya might end up doing.

"Nothing," Izaya tried to reassure him with a smile, but it was as though the doctor could see into his very soul. "It really is nothing," he then added when Shinra's frown deepened.

"Izaya..."

"Okay, fine," Izaya hissed as he walked past Shinra and plopped on the couch. "I'm sure you love hearing about how pathetic I am."

"That's not-"

"I ran into Shizu-chan and he was wearing his stupid bartender uniform again."

"And? What happened?" Shinra pushed.

"I ran," Izaya hissed in a venomous tone. "There, now you know. Happy?"

Shinra sighed softly and sat down next to Izaya. He then placed his hand on the other man's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "It's only natural to try to get away from someone who hurt you."

"It's still pathetic," Izaya hissed through gritted teeth, still refusing to look at Shinra.

"There's nothing pathetic about wanting to survive. Shizuo is dangerous and your instincts told you to get away from him. That's all," Shinra tried to reason with him, but it didn't look like his words were making Izaya feel any better. "I would run too if I saw Adabashi again," he confessed. "Especially now after finding out that he's the one who kidnapped Kasuka," he then added, his voice trembling a bit and a shiver running doing his spine knowing that he could've suffered much worse at the hands of that psychopath.

"So you know."

Shinra nodded. "Celty told me. I was really surprised but at the same time not really? I'm not sure if you know what I mean or if I'm making any sense."

"I feel the same way," Izaya said in a low voice as he finally raised his head and looked at Shinra. "I messed up and now everyone is in danger, including myself." He knew how Adabashi operated and Izaya had no doubt that sooner or later, the bastard would come after him. "I'll just have to be really careful from now on," he said and then looked Shinra directly in the eyes. "You too."

"You know I will," Shinra assured him in a low voice which was followed by a string of nervous chuckles. "I'm a bit of a coward after all."

Izaya laughed with him, but he knew that to be untrue. Shinra had taken a knife to the gut for him and even went as far as to hurt Shizuo in order to avenge him. The doctor was anything but a coward in his eyes.

Sighing, Shinra lowered his hand and averted his gaze. He was certain that what he was about to say next would not be well-received, but he knew that he had to do it for Izaya's sake. "You know," he started in a low, soft voice, "there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about." Shinra gave him a glance and he was met with a curious expression on Izaya's face. He took a deep breath and continued. "I think that you should talk to someone about what happened. Not me!" he then blurted when he thought that Izaya might think that's what he meant. "I mean, I will listen if you want to talk about it, but what I meant to say was that you should consider talking to a therapist. I can even recommend someone."

"Thanks, but I already have someone like that," Izaya revealed after a really long pause when it looked like Shinra was about to drop down on his knees and beg for forgiveness for even suggesting such a thing.

"Since when?" Shinra squeaked in surprise as a wave of relief washed over him.

"It's been a while now," Izaya answered, eyes glued to an invisible spot on the floor. "She's been helping me."

Shinra gave him a pat on the back. "That's good! That's very good!"

Izaya smiled back, glad that Shinra cared enough to even suggest such a thing. He'd been thinking about calling Shizuka once he got home, but he concluded that he didn’t need to anymore. Shinra's words had been enough.

***

As much as Shizuo had wanted to go after Izaya and try to make him understand that even though he looked the same as the monster from that night, he was no longer the same person, he didn't think that Izaya would appreciate being chased around by the man who had raped him. He felt really bad about it since he knew how much Izaya hated seeing him like that, but he was tired of people talking shit about Kasuka and he knew that the only way to make them stop was to remind them just who owned Ikebukuro.

It only took him a few days.

By the sixth night, most people didn't even dare look at him as he passed them by, too terrified of incurring his wrath. Despite all this, no one had reported him to the police. The rumors about him joining the Awakusu-kai had quickly spread and people were too scared of the Yakuza to even consider talking to the police.

He'd also found and interrogated two more of Adabashi's friends, but neither of them knew anything and because of that Shizuo was in a really bad mood as he made his way through Ikebukuro's streets, too busy imagining what he was going to do to Adabashi when he finally caught him to notice Tom and Vorona heading in his direction. It wasn't until they stopped in front of him that he finally took in his surroundings. "Tom-senpai, it's been a while. You too, Vorona."

Tom smiled as he wrapped his right arm around Shizuo's shoulders. "Yes, it has. It's good to see you." He then steered Shizuo in the direction of the nearest bakery, hoping to put Shizuo in a better mood before talking to him about some things.

Vorona silently followed behind them, unable to take her eyes off of Shizuo. She'd seen the man fight around the city the past few days and the whole thing reminded her about how much she had wanted to test her strength against him in the past, but she was weak, something that Akabayashi had taught her, and as such, she didn't even dream about defeating him anymore.

"Where are we going?" Shizuo asked.

"To the bakery. You look like you could use something sweet to cheer you up."

"I'm not really in the mood. Besides, I ate earlier," Shizuo replied as he changed direction, hoping to escape before Tom could lecture him. It wasn't something his friend did very often, but Shizuo had done a few questionable things as of late and he was certain that Tom had something to say about that.

Tom's smile fell and he turned to Vorona. "Can you wait here a few minutes? There's something I need to talk about with Shizuo." Once Vorona nodded, he motioned for Shizuo to follow him into a nearby alley.

"What did you want to talk about?" Shizuo asked as he lit up a cigarette.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked in a gentle voice since he knew how much Shizuo loved his brother and he was certain that the man's heart had been broken into a million pieces after seeing that picture.

"Not really," Shizuo replied, sounding tired. "All I can think about is my brother." And Izaya, but he couldn't tell Tom about that since the man had no idea about what had happened between the two of them.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Shizuo shook his head, but a few moments later he changed his mind. "Actually, there is one thing. If you ever see Adabashi Kisuke or hear about anyone seeing him, let me know."

Tom gave him a curious look. "What happened?" he inquired, knowing that Shizuo wouldn't look for someone unless it was important.

"He's the one who kidnapped Kasuka, but don't tell anyone about it," Shizuo requested. "The officer in charge of the case thinks that it'd be dangerous if word got out about it in the media. He fears that Adabashi might kill Kasuka and then go into hiding."

"Ah, I see. I'll ask around. Worst case scenario, people will think he's got a debt to pay."

"Yeah..." Shizuo agreed absentmindedly as he considered talking to Dougen about putting a price on the bastard's head.

"That aside," Tom continued, feeling a bit nervous because he knew that his next words might piss Shizuo off, "you should come work with me again. I don't like you working for the Yakuza."

Shizuo dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath the sole of his shoe, mumbling. "Tch! It's not like I want to. I only joined so that they would help me find Kasuka," he revealed and hoped that Tom would stop lecturing him.

Now that he knew the reason behind it, Tom could no longer find it within himself to try to convince his friend to leave the Awakusu-kai. He wasn't sure if Shizuo could even if his friend wanted to. "I understand," he finally said after a long silence. "Good luck with that. I hope you’ll find your brother soon."

"Thanks."

"The offer stands by the way," Tom told him as he started walking away. "You can come back any time you want."

Shizuo thanked him and walked out of the alley as well, not expecting to see Vorona fighting some men on the other side of the street. For a few seconds, all he could do was watch in awe before finally coming back to his senses and rushing across the street. It wasn't because he thought that she couldn't handle it, but because he was itching to relieve some of the tension he was feeling. Once there he grabbed the nearest man and threw him into a car, the people who had gathered around to watch the fight quickly scattering now that Ikebukuro's beast had appeared.

"I did not require your assistance," Vorona said after kicking one of the guys in the face, knocking him out.

Shizuo grabbed another one and punched him in the chest, knocking the air out of him. The man collapsed on the ground, struggling to breathe. Shizuo then turned to Vorona, smirking. "I know."

"What happened here?" Tom asked once Shizuo and Vorona were the only ones left standing.

"I kindly refused their invitation."

Shizuo actually laughed at her explanation while Tom sighed and shook his head.

"If you keep this up, you're going to end up with more debts than Shizuo," Tom said.

"You seem really strong," Shizuo told Vorona as he lit up another cigarette. "Are you into martial arts or something?"

"I have trained into all sorts of fields, just the basics of the basics. Dennis and Semyon, the one you call Simon, they're the ones who taught me what amounts to self-defense," Vorona replied and then followed Tom who suggested they got out of there before someone called the police.

Shizuo followed after them, curious to hear more about Vorona. "Whatever you've done, I think you're incredible."

"Coming from you, it only sounds like a facetious joke."

"I only have my strength," Shizuo said as he looked at the sky and recalled the many times he'd broken his bones while growing up. "That has nothing to do with whether someone's strong or weak," he explained. "Actually, it's people like you who train themselves to get stronger who deserve respect for being strong." Since they were passing a vending machine, he stopped and bought a soda. "There you go, my treat," he told Vorona. "I plan to get my old job back one day, so I hope we will work well together."

Vorona thanked him and then watched the man until he disappeared around the corner. He's a strange man, she thought as she opened the can. I want to know even more about him.

***

Eight days after running into Shizuo looking like his old self, Izaya stumbled into a too familiar scene. He'd heard the rumors about the beast becoming terrifying to the point that people got out of his way when he walked down the street, but he didn't believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. That day he chose to leave instead of approaching him.

Five days later however, he was not so lucky. He was walking down the street when two men came running from around the corner, crying and screaming for help. Izaya paid them no mind since people often got into fights, but it wasn't until Shizuo appeared as well, his eyes almost looking like they were burning with fury, that he realized what was happening. He stopped in his tracks, the blood freezing in his veins when the beast chose to stop in front of him instead of going after the two men. Their eyes met and Izaya's breath hitched, the fear he felt towards the terrifying beast before him sending a shiver down his spine.

It didn't take Shizuo long to realize that he was scaring Izaya, so he lowered his head, ran a hand over is face and took a deep breath to calm himself down. Finally, when he thought that he no longer looked like he wanted to murder everyone around him, he raised his head and locked eyes with the terrified man in front of him. "I didn't expect to run into you," he said, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

It took Izaya a whole minute before he finally found his voice, his eyes now locked on Shizuo's much calmer-looking face. "I didn't either," he replied softly, his heart still beating too fast inside his chest. There was something he'd been meaning to talk about with Shizuo, but he couldn't muster the courage to meet up with him. He could've called, but he thought that talking on the phone after running away made him look like too much of a coward. He considered having that discussion right there and then, but he pushed it aside, knowing that it would surely upset the beast. He would first need to get used to Shizuo's new look before he could gather the courage to threaten him. "I'm kind of in a hurry though," he said and rushed past Shizuo, wanting to get as far away from him as possible.

***

After that day, Izaya decided that the only way to get past his fear was to meet up with Shizuo again. And that's exactly what he did. He went to Ikebukuro every couple of days and always found a way to run into Shizuo. It was hard at first, but after two weeks of seeing how the beast always calmed down the moment their eyes met, Izaya was finally feeling brave enough to have that conversation.

"Here," Shizuo said as he passed him a cup of coffee, black, just as he knew the flea liked it. He would never say it out loud, but he was glad that he could finally talk to Izaya again without the flea looking like he wanted to run as far away from him as possible.

Izaya took the cup without thanking Shizuo and took a sip, scanning the area for ways to escape in case things went south. "I heard you have a girlfriend."

Shizuo chocked on the milk he was drinking. "What?!" he sputtered, eyes wide in shock since he had no idea what Izaya was talking about.

Izaya's until then neutral expression turned vicious as he turned to the idiotic beast sitting down next to him. "Don't play innocent, Shizu-chan. I know that you've been spending time with Vorona. Everyone is talking about it."

Shizuo frantically shook his head, terrified of what Izaya might do next since he knew what a vindictive little shit the flea was. "She's Tom-senpai's employee, that's all," he tried to explain in a low voice. "We ran into each other a couple of times, but we're not dating."

"You like her, don't you?" Izaya said as he grabbed Shizuo by the jaw and squeezed, his nails digging deep into the beast's flesh.

"I don't!" Shizuo tried to assure him, but the brown-red eyes boring holes into him were a clear sign that Izaya didn't believe a word he was saying.

"You think you can go around having fun after what you did to me?" Izaya hissed, letting all the anger he felt pour into his voice. "You don't get to have a life after ruining mine!"

Shizuo nervously swallowed. “Look, there’s nothing going on―”

“You don’t think I’d tell her?” Izaya challenged, his eyes burning with fury at the thought of Shizuo sleeping with her. He could barely touch himself without breaking down and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let the beast have fun after ruining him.

Terror gripped Shizuo’s heart when he finally understood just how serious Izaya was about the whole thing. It wasn't that Shizuo loved Vorona, but he enjoyed her company and he didn't want her to see him as a monster. As for wanting her, he had never really thought about it.

“She’s pretty good-looking,” Izaya admitted as he dug his nails even deeper. “I really can’t blame you if you want to fuck her.”

A shiver ran down Shizuo’s spine at the madness in Izaya’s eyes. He wrenched himself out of Izaya's hold and stood up, feeling as though he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. “There’s nothing going on between us,” he said, not daring to look at Izaya again.

Izaya stood up as well. "It better stay that way," he warned and walked away, hoping that he'd made himself clear. His thoughts went to Masami and he threw the cup in Shizuo's direction, teeth grinding against each other in fury as he recalled how horribly he'd failed the night he'd tried to have sex with her.

Shizuo just stood there, staring at the coffee cup as fear and guilt squeezed his heart in a vice grip.

***

After the warning he'd received, Shizuo avoided Vorona as much as possible. He wouldn't even meet up with Tom because there was a chance Vorona might be with him, so every time his senpai wanted to talk to him, Shizuo would lie that he was busy. Izaya didn't bring up the subject again, but they talked on the phone every couple of days to see if the other had any lead on Adabashi. As much as Izaya had upset him with the whole Vorona thing, Shizuo was grateful that the flea was still trying to find Kasuka, or at least that's how he felt until two weeks later when someone knocked on his door and left him a small box before running away. Inside, there was a note and a phone.

Not again, Shizuo thought, shuddering. The last time something like this had happened, he ended up watching a video of Kasuka nearly getting raped. Slowly, he picked up the piece of paper with trembling hands and unfolded it, the cryptic message only increasing his worries.

 

---

 

 From a concerned hacker who happened to stumble across this in his travels.

 

---

 

Shizuo gathered his courage and played the only video on the phone, hoping that he was wrong and that the whole thing was a prank. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

There, on the floor, so skinny that his bones were showing, beaten bloody and trembling like a leaf in the wind was none other than his brother. Shizuo felt as though a sword had pierced his heart at the sight and he staggered backwards in shock, nearly collapsing on the couch as his legs gave out from under him.

"No..." he uttered in horror when the sounds of a door opening and of footsteps approaching made Kasuka retreat further into the corner, the terror his brother was experiencing almost palpable.

The other person came into view, or at least the lower half of the body since the camera appeared to be placed on the floor, and that's when Shizuo let out a sound of shocked surprise.

There, towering over Kasuka appeared to be standing none other than Izaya. The face wasn't showing, but the shoes, the pants and the fur-trimmed coat was a dead giveaway. That's when Shizuo finally understood why the flea had offered to help in the first place. Sounds of pain and of shoes hitting flesh erupted from the video and Shizuo thought that he was going to be sick at the sight of Izaya violently kicking his little brother.

"IIIIZAAAYAAAAA!!!" Shizuo roared the name and stood up, darting out of the apartment with only one thought in mind: to find and kill Izaya if the bastard didn't tell him where Kasuka was.

「Where are you?」he wrote the message and sent it to the insect he was going to crush, knowing that he wouldn't be able to talk on the phone without giving away how angry he was. He'd promised the flea that he was going to kill him if he hurt Kasuka again and Shizuo was going to make good on his promise if the lying piece of shit that was Orihara Izaya refused to talk.

《Taking a stroll through Ikebukuro.》

「Meet me at the place where we last met,」 he typed with trembling hands as he ran out of the apartment building.

It took a few minutes for him to get a reply, but when he did, it was a simple 《Fine.》

Shizuo ran as fast as he could, not even caring that he was supposed to meet Aozaki. All he could think about was Izaya lying to his face and pretending to want to help when in reality the disgusting insect had been the one to kidnap his brother. It felt as though his blood was on fire and that he was chocking on the anger he could feel pouring out of every cell in body. He knew that no matter how much he regretted breaking Izaya, he was not going to forgive the insect for using Kasuka once again. His little brother's life was at stake and no amount of guilt was going to stop Shizuo from hurting the man who had tortured Kasuka.

***

Izaya was the first to arrive. He was not really in the mood to talk, but he figured that it had to be something important otherwise Shizuo wouldn't have requested to meet up with him. Sighing, he leaned against a stop sign and looked up at the sky, wishing that he was somewhere outside the city so that he could see the stars better. The stars were really bright that night, he thought when he recalled the time he'd tried to sleep with Masami. The failure had been a blow to his already crushed pride and it bothered him every time he thought about it, but at least Shizuo was no longer seeing Vorona and that was enough to make him feel a little bit better. After all, misery loves company.

As he thought that, he heard the sounds of footsteps from somewhere behind and he turned around, his eyes going wide at the sight of a maddened beast running in his direction. At first, he thought that Shizuo might be chasing someone, but then he remembered that no one had passed by for a while now and he realized that all that fury was directed at him. Fear like he had never felt before froze the blood in his veins and he almost couldn't move for a few agonizing seconds, but then his instincts kicked in and he ran, the sheer terror of what would happen if he got caught enough to get his legs to move even after the world started to spin around him as his mind was bombarded by horrifying flashbacks.

The terror he was feeling spiked when the beast roared out his name and he nearly fell when the vivid memory of being thrust into flashed in his head, but he managed to catch his footing at the last second and continued running, all the while wondering what he'd done to awaken the monster within Heiwajima Shizuo.

No, no, no, please no!

He was so scared that he wasn't even thinking straight anymore as he ran through the streets, his mind too busy trying to fight back the memories for him to really see where he was going. All he knew was that he couldn't stop because if he stopped, the only thing awaiting him was pain and humiliation. He didn't even dare look back, too terrified of the beast chasing him.

Why?

Why??

WHY???

A street sign connected with the left side of his body and he was thrown into a building, the impact knocking the air out of his lungs. He quickly scrambled to his feet and ran up the stairs, struggling to breathe. The bone-chilling fear pushed him forward even if it felt as though his lungs were on fire and that his legs could give out from under him at any moment; only a small scream slipped past his dry lips when Shizuo almost succeeded in grabbing his arm. The door leading to the rooftop was open and he thanked the gods he wasn't even sure existed as he dashed through it.

Once there, the knowledge that he was trapped further increased his panic and it pushed him to do something really dangerous. He jumped once he reached the edge, luckily making it to the rooftop of the nearby building. He didn't need to look back to know that Shizuo had made the jump too, the beast's footsteps ringing loudly in his head.

He headed straight for the door leading to the staircase, grabbed the handle and pressed, but the thing was locked and he almost got caught that fraction of a second it took to get past the panic and run.

"Stop running you piece of shit, you've got nowhere to run!" Shizuo shouted.

Izaya shuddered but didn't stop. He couldn't. The next building was at a greater distance and he was worried that he might not make it, but the fear was too great and as such he could not stop even if he wanted to. He heard Shizuo shout at him again but he ignored him and jumped, a terrified scream ripping out of his throat when he failed to reach the other side. For a fraction of a second, as the realization dawned on him, the fear of death overwhelmed him and he truly regretted jumping, but to his surprise, instead of falling down, he was caught by Shizuo in mid-air and the two of them crashed into a balcony, the glass cutting into his skin as it shattered around them. His head came into contact with a wall and the last thing he saw before losing consciousness was an angry beast grabbing him by the throat.

"Wake up, bastard!" Shizuo shouted, not even noticing the woman staring at him until she started screaming. He knew there was no point in trying to explain, so he picked Izaya up, kicked down the door and ran away, all the while barely stopping himself from ripping apart the unconscious flea.

"Wake up!" he growled as he slapped Izaya's face. "Wake the fuck up!" he tried again, but the accursed insect wasn't waking up. There was blood on the side of Izaya's head and Shizuo realized that it might take a while before the flea woke up. He couldn't really stay there and he couldn't walk down the streets with a bloody and unconscious Izaya in his arms, so he did the only thing he could think of and called Kadota.

"I need you to bring the van and some rope," he said before Kadota could even say hi.

"What?" Kadota asked in surprise, thinking he hadn't heard right.

"Just do it!" Shizuo growled into the phone. "And come alone. I'll message you the address in a second."

"Okay..." Kadota agreed, wondering if Shizuo had gotten into trouble with the Yakuza.

"Thanks," Shizuo said before he ended the call and sent Kadota the address.

Ten minute later, the van arrived and Kadota got out, his eyes going wide when he saw the person Shizuo was holding in his arms.

"What is this?" he asked, frowning, his previously wide eyes narrowing into slits.

"Izaya is the asshole who took my brother. I'm going to make him talk no matter what."

Kadota looked skeptical, but he agreed to help Shizuo when his former classmate mentioned that he had video evidence. He opened the side door to the van and Shizuo stepped in, the man immediately grabbing the rope and proceeding to tie Izaya's wrists. "Is that really necessary?" he couldn't help but ask. "He’s unconscious."

Shizuo sneered as he grabbed the insect's ankles. "I don't want to risk him running away. My brother's life is at stake here."

"Alright."

Finally, Kadota got in as well and started the engine. "Where to?"

"Izaya's apartment. I'm thinking he may have some more videos lying around." After tying Izaya's ankles, he searched through the insect's pockets, knowing that the bastard always carried at least one switchblade with him. He found two, which he shoved into the pocket of his pants before finally leaning against the van's door, still in shock after seeing Izaya jump off the rooftop like that.

The ride to Izaya's apartment was spent in silence, Kadota knowing better than to poke the angry bear that was Heiwajima Shizuo. It was only once they got there and Shizuo picked Izaya up that he asked to see the video.

"I don't have time for that right now!" Shizuo growled and ran into the building, not willing to waste a single second he could spend going through the bastard's apartment and hopefully find a clue to where Kasuka was being kept.

Once he reached the door he opened it with the key he'd taken from Izaya, dumped the flea on the couch and then moved to the desk. Unfortunately, all the computers were locked with passwords and Shizuo barely managed to stop himself from throwing them out the window, knowing that Izaya might have incriminating evidence on them.

There were still things he could find if he looked around, so he started with the drawers, pulling them out of the desk and dumping their contents on the floor. He found a couple of flash drives and an insane number of phones, but since the computers were locked, he pocketed the flash drives, planning to force Izaya to show him the contents once the flea woke up. He did the same with Namie's desk before moving to the library, not expecting to find Celty's head there.

"No way..." he uttered in a shocked voice as he picked up the glass container and brought it closer to his face, the anger he was already experiencing increasing tenfold. He then turned to the unconscious body lying on the couch. "You really are a piece of shit," he hissed as his thoughts went to poor Celty who had been desperately looking for her head. "I must've been crazy to think that you could ever change," he then added as he placed the container on the nearby desk and went back to looking for anything that might lead to his brother. A few minutes later a pained moan reached his ears and he ran up to Izaya who was slowly coming back to his senses.

"Where is my brother?" Shizuo growled as he placed a knee on the couch and grabbed the insect by the throat.

Izaya screamed.

Chapter 92: A Nightmare to Remember

Those light brown eyes staring angrily at him, the rough hand wrapped around his throat and the feeling of being trapped with no way out were enough to send Izaya back to that dark alley where he'd been broken into a million pieces and left to die. He could almost feel the wind on his face and the wet and cold pavement beneath, but the intensity of those sensations paled in comparison to the disgust he was experiencing as a result of the beast's hand coming in contact with his skin. The horror of it all was too much and he couldn't stop screaming as vivid flashbacks assaulted his mind. Shizuo was all around him, inside him, an all powerful monster he couldn't escape. He'd been a fool to think that he could ever control such a beast. He was no god; he was an insect getting stomped on by someone a lot stronger than he was. It hurt. Not only was his body in pain, but his soul as well, the thing that made up Orihara Izaya further shattering into more pieces he knew he would never be able to get back.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started the weight keeping him down was gone and it felt as though he could breathe again, but he was still feeling confused as the reality around him continued to intertwine with the memories of that fateful night. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the cold pavement beneath him was replaced by the softness of a couch and the all encompassing darkness by artificial light.

Shizuo watched as Izaya's eyes darted around the place, the insect appearing to finally come back to his senses. He could barely restrain himself from getting up and grabbing the flea by the throat again, but he couldn't do that, knowing that it would push Izaya into having another panic attack. The insect was obviously terrified of him and Shizuo, regardless of how angry he felt at that moment, couldn't blame him for feeling that way after what he'd done to him. He still wanted to kill Izaya though, slowly and painfully for hurting his little brother again, but he was willing to compromise. "Give me back my brother and I won't kill you," Shizuo promised through gritted teeth.

"W-What?" Izaya asked, his voice sounding hoarse. He'd been so shocked at the sight of Celty's head being out in the open that he hadn't even heard the beast's words. He knows, he thought in a panic as his eyes darted between the monster of his nightmares and the thing he'd hoped would one day help him escape death. Finally, his eyes settled on the terrifying beast flexing his hands and he couldn't help but nervously swallow as wave after wave of nausea washed over him while he recalled the events leading to him waking up tied up in his own apartment.

"I once promised you that if you hurt my brother again, I would kill you, but I'm willing to let you go if you just tell me where he is," Shizuo repeated, hating himself for even offering such a deal. Every cell in his body screamed at him to destroy the insect, but he knew that it was the only way since his mere touch seemed to be enough to make Izaya turn hysterical.

Izaya opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to comprehend what was going on. "I... I d-don't," he stuttered pathetically, "know w-what―"

"Don't lie to me!" Shizuo roared as he stood up angrily, balling his hands into fists as he towered over the insect.

Izaya recoiled further into the couch and more tears gathered in his eyes as the trembling increased. It was then when he realized that he'd been crying for a while now and he couldn't help but shudder and try to make himself smaller as if to shield himself from the beast's wrath. At that moment, as he blinked the tears in his eyes and stared at the rope digging into his wrists, he felt utterly pathetic.

"I was an idiot to trust you," Shizuo hissed. "I was so blinded by guilt that I had forgotten what you truly were." It wasn't just that. A part of him had truly hoped that Izaya had become a better person. "Or maybe I knew it deep down inside but chose to ignore that little voice telling me never to trust you because you are the biggest lying piece of shit on this planet."

"...don't k-know," Izaya repeated, his words being followed by something sounding a lot like a sob. "I d-don't know. I don't know! I don't know!" he then shouted in a trembling voice as he began pulling on the rope in anger, fear and frustration.

"Stop lying!" Shizuo shouted again and this time he couldn't stop himself from grabbing a fistful of raven hair.

"Don't touch m-me!" Izaya shrieked as he struggled to free himself from the monster's hold. His breathing was turning even more erratic than it already was and he could feel himself slipping away once more, but the sound of a door opening brought him back and he nearly sobbed in relief when he saw who was standing there. The pieces of his shattered pride flew out the window and he couldn't stop the next words from leaving his mouth. "Dotachin, h-help me!" he begged as tears continued to run down his face. "I don't k-know, I d-don't understand!"

Kadota walked up to the two of them and pushed Shizuo away, now certain that his decision to go up to the apartment had been the right one.

"I thought I told you to leave!" Shizuo growled once he got over his shock and walked up to Kadota who appeared to be standing his ground.

They were so close that their noses were almost touching. "Something didn't feel right." Trembling hands buried into the back of his jacket and that's when he understood just how terrified Izaya was. "If he did what you said he did, then call the police and let them deal with it instead of assuming the roles of judge, jury and executioner."

"I didn't do a-anything. I don't k-know," Izaya repeated as he tightened his hold on Kadota's jacket. The man was his only hope and he wasn't going to let him leave no matter what.

"You said you had video evidence. I want to see it," Kadota demanded.

Shizuo stared at him for a few more seconds before finally conceding and retrieving the phone from the pocket of his pants. "There, play the video," he said as he handed him the phone.

Kadota watched it in silence, his frown deepening. Once done he turned around and then crouched in front of Izaya who was still holding onto a piece of his jacket. "This is a video of Kasuka getting beat up. Do you think you can watch it?" he asked in a soft voice.

Izaya nodded and then swallowed nervously, hoping that it wasn't too bad since he didn't think he could stand seeing violence when he was still so scared of the angry beast glaring at him. The sight of Kasuka looking like that was enough to almost trigger another panic attack, but Kadota's calming presence kept him rooted in the moment. Then the shock came and he didn't know how to react as he watched someone who looked like him viciously kick Kasuka.

"Is that you?" Kadota asked.

The phone slipped from Izaya's hands and he shook his head, eyes wide in disbelief. "N-No... I... n-not me. I don't k-know."

Kadota picked up the phone, stood up and handed it to Shizuo. "You heard him.”

"Are you kidding me?" Shizuo shouted in anger. "You're going to believe this lying piece of shit?"

"All I see is someone dressed like him kicking your brother, and while I feel sorry for him, it's best to not jump to conclusions."

Shizuo grabbed Kadota by the shirt. "You're just saying that because you don't know a thing! It's not the first time the flea hurt my brother!" he shouted in anger as he shook him back and forth, unable to further control the fury consuming him from within. "He kidnapped my brother before!" he shouted again, this time much louder than before. "He nearly got him raped!"

Kadota scoffed, doubting that Izaya would sink so low in order to hurt Shizuo. "I find that very hard to believe. Why would he do something like that?" He expected Shizuo to shout at him again, but the man's eyes went wide before he lowered his head, suddenly unable to look at him at the same time that the grip on his jacket tightened. That's when it all clicked and it felt as though a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped on him.

Oh.

It all finally made sense, especially Izaya's words from that time when they'd all ran into each other and it nearly ended with Erika getting hurt by Shizuo. He couldn't remember the exact words, but he was certain that Izaya had mentioned something about Shizuo taking great pleasure in breaking his body and being so brutal that Izaya couldn't even walk afterwards.

At the time, he hadn't read too much into it, but Shizuo's panicked expression, as well as his anger once Erika had started babbling about sexual things, finally made sense.

The ice in his veins was turning into fire and before he even knew what he was doing he raised his fist and punched Shizuo in the face so hard that he broke his hand. He wasn't one to easily get angry, but he was feeling livid as he imagined someone as strong as Shizuo attacking someone like Izaya, who even though was fast, could still get hurt just like everyone else.

"I think I understand now," he spat the words in disgust. "I should've seen it sooner, but the thought of you doing something like that had never crossed my mind." He heard a gasp from behind him and he turned around, realizing that Izaya must have figured out that he knew. "Hey, it's okay," he said in a soft voice but Izaya's head was down and the man's trembling appeared to have gotten worse. "I'm going to cut the ropes, okay?" he explained, but before he could do anything he was grabbed by the throat, pulled away from Izaya and thrown across the room.

"Dotachin!" Izaya screamed the name in distress, suddenly feeling vulnerable now that the human shield between Shizuo and himself was gone.

"You figured it out and yet you're still saying Izaya had no reason to do this?" Shizuo growled, struggling to push back the shame he was feeling. He had all the time in the world to feel ashamed about his actions after he saved Kasuka.

Groaning, Kadota pushed himself up and that's when he noticed the head for the first time. "What the..."

"The flea had it," Shizuo explained. "He's had it this whole time."

Choosing to ignore it for the moment, Kadota turned to Shizuo. "I don’t think that he’s the one who kidnapped Kasuka."

Shizuo laughed, as though he couldn't believe the words coming out of the other man's mouth.

"Can't you see that he's terrified?" Kadota hissed in anger. "I can't say that I know Izaya very well, but I know him enough to be able to say without a shadow of a doubt that he would never allow anyone to see him cry, least of all his archenemy; unless he was truly scared of you, which makes sense after what you've done."

The shame Izaya was already feeling increased tenfold after hearing Kadota's words and he couldn't stop himself from breaking into sobbing. He brought his tied up hands to his mouth to muffle the sounds, the humiliation he was drowning in mixing with a bit of relief at the thought of Kadota defending him so vehemently. He hated himself for looking so weak but he couldn't stop his shoulders from shaking or the tears from running down his face.

"If he knew something about your brother, he would've told you by now," Kadota added as he walked back to Izaya and sat down on the couch. "I'll cut the ropes now," he warned and then waited until Izaya nodded before taking out his switchblade. He had to be careful because Izaya was still trembling and he didn't want to cut him by accident, but after a few tries, he succeeded in his task. He then gently placed a hand on Izaya's shoulder and slowly guided him into his arms, the man not fighting and instead grabbing his T-shirt before burying his face into his chest.

Shizuo could do nothing but watch, the feeling that he might've been wrong slowly creeping into his mind. For starters, Izaya would never be so careless as to allow such a video to be stolen from him. He was too smart for that. Why would he even film himself to begin with and not show his face? In the previous video, Izaya had clearly wanted his archenemy to know who was going to destroy Kasuka. As the seed of doubt continued to grow, he began to recall crucial details, like the kidnapper sending Kasuka's nail to Ruri. If Izaya was the kidnapper, then Shizuo himself would've been the one to receive the nail. The more he thought about it, the more the fire in his veins began to cool down and soon enough it ended up turning into ice. What have I done? he realized in horror as the fog which had previously settled over his mind appeared to have finally lifted. Oh god...

His legs gave out from under him and he collapsed on his knees, all those promises he'd made to never hurt Izaya again crushing him beneath their weight. Izaya had almost killed himself trying to run away from him, and if that wasn't proof of how scared the flea had been, then he didn't know what was. Izaya would've never risked incurring his wrath by hurting Kasuka again for the sake of revenge no matter how much he hated him. He suddenly started feeling dizzy and he buried his face into his hands, the suffocating guilt and the regret he was feeling making it hard for him to breathe.

"I'm so sorry..." he uttered in a broken voice as his eyes filled with tears.

Kadota continued to run his hand through Izaya's hair and only spared him a glance before his attention went back to the broken creature in his arms. He couldn't even begin to understand what Izaya was going through, but he knew that no matter what kind of person Orihara Izaya was, he didn’t deserve to suffer like that. “Shizuo,” he said without even looking at him. “Leave.”

“Izaya, I’m sorry,” Shizuo repeated as he struggled to stand up. Just like that night, he’d lost himself to his anger and had ended up hurting Izaya, even after promising to never hurt him again. “I’m sorry...”

The words reached Izaya, but he still couldn’t believe what the beast was saying until he risked a glance in Shizuo’s direction and saw the expression on the previously angry face. The fury was gone, only to be replaced by guilt and regret.

“I... I’ll go,” Shizuo said in a low voice as he lowered his head, unable to look Izaya in the one eye the man was revealing from behind Kadota. He slowly turned around and headed in the direction of Celty’s head, not expecting the reaction he was about to get from Izaya.

After seeing the guilt on Shizuo’s face and knowing that the idiot was back to the dog he could boss around, Izaya’s fear was pushed back by the anger he couldn’t help but feel. He shoved Kadota away from him, grabbed the katana he’d left on the opposite couch, behind the pillows, and charged at the monster who had humiliated him once again.

“Stop!” Kadota screamed and tried to grab Izaya, but the man was too fast and all he could do was watch as Shizuo turned around and barely avoided getting run through with the sword. To his horror, Izaya raised the sword again to most likely take off Shizuo's head, this time forcing him to dash beneath the desk before running towards the kitchen. Izaya followed, swinging his sword surprisingly well and nearly taking Shizuo's arm when the man jumped over the counter.

Izaya let out an animalistic sound of unadulterated fury and did the same, the fear forgotten when all he could feel was the need to end the beast's life.

"I can't let you kill me before I find Kasuka!" Shizuo shouted as he ran up the stairs, Izaya following after him and this time succeeding in slashing his lower leg. He jumped over the rail and barely escaped with his fingers still attached, the katana hitting metal right after he let go. Izaya jumped after him and Shizuo ran towards the desk, accidentally stepping on one of the many phones scattered across the floor and then falling down with a loud thud. He looked up and raised his arm on instinct, the image of Izaya towering over him and raising the sword to deliver the finishing blow making him think of a reaper finally giving him the punishment he knew he deserved. To his surprise, Izaya's hands were pushed to the side by Kadota who grabbed him by the nape and then knocked his head hard again the desk. The sword slipped from Izaya's hands and landed near Shizuo's head, clattering on the floor.

Kadota picked the unconscious Izaya up and carried him to the couch while Shizuo got up, still in shock over the whole thing. He went straight for Celty's head, limping a bit, covered it with a piece of cloth he'd found in one of the drawers and then headed for the door.

"Take care of Izaya," he said before he pressed the handle and walked out, hoping that he hadn't completely broken Izaya.

Originally, he'd had every intention of giving Celty her head back, but now he was considering using it as insurance in case Izaya went after him since the man seemed to be hellbent on taking his life. All he needed was to survive long enough to save Kasuka. Afterward, he was prepared to let Izaya do anything to him. Once outside he stopped for a minute to catch his breath and thought about who he could trust with it. The first name that popped into his head was Tom, but he decided against it and instead went with Vorona. The woman was a good fighter and Izaya would probably not suspect her since he would assume that the two of them no longer talked.

Now that he knew what he had to do, he headed in the direction of the train station and hoped that no one would attack him on his way there. The cargo he was carrying was too precious for him to let out of his sight for even a second. He also knew that he couldn't risk Izaya finding out where he was going, so he took out his phone, turned it off and took out the battery before shoving them both back inside his pocket. He wasn't sure if Onishi could even track his phone if Izaya asked it of him, but Shizuo didn't want to risk it.

Once in Ikubukuro, he acquired a box from a store, bought some tape and a pen and then placed the container inside before heading towards Tom's apartment. The hour was late and he felt bad for bothering his senpai, but he didn't have Vorona's number or address and he desperately needed to get in contact with her. As always, Tom seemed very worried about him, especially since Shizuo's lower leg was bleeding, but the man eventually calmed down and gave him the address. Shizuo thanked him and then headed in the direction of Vorona's apartment, hoping to find her home. Once there he knocked on the door and waited with bated breath, not knowing what else to do if Vorona refused to help him.

"I need a favor," he said before she could even greet him.

Vorona's eyes momentarily went to the box he was carrying before settling on her unexpected visitor's face. She invited him inside, curious to find out what he needed from her. "How can I help?"

"I need you to keep this box safe for me."

Once again she glanced at the box, but this time her eyes lingered longer on it as she wondered what was inside.

"I can't tell you what's inside," he told her before she could ask the question. "I understand if you don't want to help," he then added, not wanting to pressure her into anything.

"I will help," she finally said after a long silence.

Shizuo sighed in relief before continuing. "There's something else. I need you to give this to Celty Sturluson in case something happens to me. Her address is on the box. Do not give it to anyone else."

Vorona nodded. "Understood."

Shizuo smiled tiredly. "Thank you!" He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that he could trust her.

"Do you require help with your wounds?" she added since he appeared to be bleeding pretty badly from his lower leg.

Shizuo shook his head and headed for the door. "Thanks again," he said and then headed in the direction of his apartment. First thing in the morning, he was going to go from door to door and ask his neighbors if they'd seen anyone drop a box at his door. Until then, he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep after the horrible things he'd put Izaya through.

***

Kadota spent the entire night watching over Izaya, but he had to admit that he was a bit scared of the man. Once he'd woken up, Izaya had grabbed the katana before making his way to the desk and that's how the morning found him when the first sun rays had entered the apartment.

"Is there anything you want to eat?" Kadota had asked him at around nine in the morning and prayed for an answer, but Izaya ignored him and instead continued to stare into empty space, a terrifying expression on his face.

Sighing, he made his way to the bathroom, not exactly looking forward to having another conversation with Shizuo.

"Did something happen to Izaya?" Shizuo asked as soon as he picked up.

"Not exactly, but I'm worried about him, and as much as I want to break your neck right now, I'm wondering if you might know any way to help him," he said, sounding annoyed. "I know that the two of you seemed to be getting along relatively well until last night."

Shizuo remained silent for a couple of minutes while he pondered what he could do to help Izaya. "I think I know someone who might be able to help, so please stay with him until she arrives."

"Will do," Kadota promised and ended the call, hoping that the person Shizuo had mentioned would arrive there soon since he had a feeling that Saburo was already freaking out about the van.

***

It was around noon when Izaya was distracted from his thoughts by the sound of someone knocking on the door. "Don't open it."

Kadota was surprised to hear Izaya talk since the man had been ignoring him ever since he'd woken up the night before. For a moment, he hesitated, but then he chose to go against Izaya's wishes and opened the door, hoping that he'd made the right choice. There stood a woman, around four or five years older than him, with her hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head and looking very professional. She had a kind expression on her face and that made Kadota relax a bit. "Did Shizuo explain the situation?" he asked in a low voice so that Izaya wouldn't hear him.

"Yes. You can leave now. I will be fine," she assured him before walking in and closing the door behind her.

"Nakura-san," she spoke in a soft voice as she approached the desk. She was a bit worried about the bloody sword he was holding in his left hand, not for her safety, but for his. "I thought that you might need someone to talk to."

"I'm fine," he hissed through gritted teeth. "I'll be fine," he then corrected himself when she gave him a skeptical look. "Who asked you to come here?"

Shizuka grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it in front of his desk before sitting down, her eyes glued to the agitated man so that she could catch any small change in gesture and expression. "The man you were with when we met in person." The second she'd mentioned Heiwajima Shizuo, her patient tensed up and he began to slightly shake in what looked like rage while his hand appeared to be holding the katana tighter. "He does not know that you've been my patient for a while now," she clarified, wondering if he was angry because he felt humiliated. That did not seem to be the case. If anything, he seemed to get angrier at her comment.

"Shizu-chan must really want to die," Izaya hissed through gritted teeth.

"I'm sure he only wanted to help."

"I don't need his help!" he shouted in anger and drove the sword into the floor, his outburst surprisingly not startling her.

"Then accept my help," Shizuka offered again.

Izaya glared at her for a while before finally tearing his eyes away from her face and swiveling in his chair until he was facing the window. "I've already been humiliated enough for one day."

"I do not judge; I only listen and offer advice," she reminded him.

Izaya raised the katana and placed it in his lap, his eyes settling on the beast's filthy dried blood tainting the beautiful blade. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"Start with the beginning," Shizuka suggested.

"He sounded like an interesting human being. I'd heard interesting stories about him from a common friend and I wanted to meet him. I finally got the chance to talk to Shizu-chan when I was in high school, but our first encounter didn't go as expected," he recalled with some bitterness.

"He hated me from the start. He didn't even have a reason, he just felt that I was a bad person and said that he wanted to wipe the smirk off my face. He attacked first and I defended myself. I took out my switchblade and cut him across the chest. I remember he looked surprised that there was someone out there who could dodge his fist and even go as far as to hurt him. He chased me around the city until he finally got hit by a truck. Of course he survived, a monster like him..."

Shizuka had heard a lot of weird stories from her patients, but she had a feeling that this one was going to be the strangest yet. "It was not your fault that he did not like you. You didn't do anything to elicit such a response."

Izaya laughed at her comment. "Maybe not that time," Izaya said and tore his eyes away from the dried blood and stared out the window, "but I sure did a lot of things afterwards. I sent gangs after him. I tried to pin crimes on him. I even put his brother in harm's way, all to make him suffer. You see, Fujita-san, I am not a good person, but Shizu-chan, well, he's nothing less than a monster."

"He's the one who hurt you," she stated, certain in her assessment.

"Yes," Izaya replied.

"What did he do to you?" she continued, hoping that he would finally tell her about the nightmare he'd been put through.

"What do you think happened?" Izaya asked and that's when a loud meow caught his attention. "Doku-chan!" he called out and swiveled in the direction of the stairs. The cat looked scared and Izaya realized that the poor thing must've hidden inside the bedroom sometimes last night, not daring to come out until then. "You must be hungry,” he said as Yuigadokusonmaru ran up to him and jumped in his lap, meowing loudly. "I'm so sorry."

"I will feed him," Shizuka offered and stood up. "Meanwhile, you think about answering my question."

Izaya nodded, feeling too tired to do anything but sit down. "The cans of food are inside the upper left cabinet," he said before turning towards the window again, wondering if he could find within himself the courage to tell her what Shizuo had done to him.

"I gave him water too, so you don't have to worry about him," Shizuka said after a while and sat back down on the chair. "Have you decided yet?"

"I can't say it," he confessed, feeling ashamed for being such a coward.

"Then write it down," Shizuka suggested.

The silence stretched for a very long time until Izaya turned around, grabbed one of the pieces of paper scattered across the desk, a pen and then pressed it down on the paper. He tried to write the words but the mere idea of any more people knowing what he had been through was enough to make him dizzy. He was still trying to recover after the shock of Kadota figuring it out.

"Nakura-san, what did Heiwajima-san do to you?" she repeated the question. "Write the answer for now and afterwards you can decide if you will allow me to read it."

Knowing that he could destroy the paper at any time, Izaya wrote the answer, his hand trembling so badly that it barely looked like his handwriting anymore.

"You don't have to give me the piece of paper if you don't want to," she reminded him since she could see the panic in his eyes. "You can destroy it if that's what you wish to do. Do you want to destroy it, Nakura-san, or will you allow me to read it?"

Izaya lowered his head and stared intently at the piece of paper, his breathing almost turning erratic as he tried to decide which one was the right answer. As if guessing his dilemma, she spoke again.

"There is no wrong or right answer. All that matter is how you feel, if you want to or not."

Finally, Izaya folded the piece of paper, pushed it in her direction and quickly swiveled around to face the window, heart beating wildly inside his chest. "Read it once you're out the door," he requested. "I want to be alone now."

"Thank you for trusting me, Nakura-san," she said before she stood up, walked up to the desk and picked up the piece of paper. "I guess that I will see you next time. I would prefer we meet in person, but it's also fine if you call.” She then turned around and walked out of the apartment. Once outside, she unfolded the paper. Written on it were the following words: "He raped me."

The piece of paper got crumpled in her hand and she started walking away. I will do my best to help you, Nakura-san. I promise.

Notes:

LZonnaArt made this wonderful piece of fanart for Chapter 86 - Crumbling Monolith, but I think it's also perfect for this chapter. Thank you again for drawing this! ♥

 If anyone else has done fanart for this fic and I haven't linked it here, it means that I haven't seen it yet, so leave a link in the comments. I don't check my deviantart and tumblr accounts very often. ^.^;

Chapter 93: Unveiled Hunter

Slon had just finished eating when he received a call from an unknown number. Eye narrowing, he put the phone to his ear, almost hoping that it was who he thought it was since not many people knew this particular number.

"It's been a while," the voice at the other end said.

His grip on the phone tightened and he grit his teeth in anger at the mere sound of that bastard’s voice. Even so, he figured that it was best to not threaten the man from the start and risk him disappearing once again. "You have something of mine," he hissed, unable to hide the anger he was feeling.

"I didn't know he was yours," Adabashi teased, "since he said that you didn't really do anything to him."

That's when Slon knew that Adabashi had broken Yuuhei. There was no way the man would've told him anything unless he could no longer stand the torture. The image of the picture Adabashi put online flashed in his mind and he nearly slammed his fist on the table with how angry he was.

"I had him and you took him. You shouldn't have done that," Slon reminded him and hated himself for making the mistake of saving Adabashi.

"I wanted to play with him too," Adabashi said, chuckling. "He's like a puppy that I can't stop wanting to kick."

Slon had done a lot of bad things during his lifetime, but Adabashi was on a whole new level of evil. The man obviously took great pleasure in hurting people and Slon worried more than ever that the actor had truly been broken beyond repair. "Give him back and I'll do my best to not kill you," Slon offered.

"Do me this little favor and you can have him," Adabashi proposed.

For the first time in his life, Slon didn't care what said favor was. All he wanted was to take Yuuhei away from Adabashi.

***

After Shizuka left, Izaya remained like that, looking out the window while holding the katana tightly in his hand. The shame he was already experiencing seemed to have intensified after giving her that piece of paper, but at the same time he felt relief knowing that he'd taken a huge step forward. Too bad Shizu-chan pushed me like ten steps backwards though, he thought angrily. The control he'd managed to achieve over his emotions had been shattered and he didn't know how to go back to being calm again when all he wanted to do was destroy Shizuo. You'll pay for this, Adabashi, he vowed, certain that the stalker was the one who had set him up. You too, Shizu-chan.

What surprised him though was that Celty hadn't paid him a visit yet. Surely she would come rough him up a bit once she found out that he'd had her head this whole time. He then wondered if perhaps Shizuo hadn't told her how he had acquired the head, but that too didn't explain why Shinra hadn't yet called to cry about it since he knew that his friend feared Celty getting her memories back and abandoning him more than anything in the world. The hope that Shizuo still had Celty's head suddenly flared and he took out his phone, intending to call the idiotic beast.

"Izaya?" Shizuo asked in surprise, not expecting the man to call him after what he'd done to him.

"You've got some nerve, calling Fujita-san like that," Izaya hissed into the phone.

"I just wanted to help," Shizuo explained, sounding regretful. "I know that what I've done to you reopened many of the old wounds and I thought that talking to someone might help."

Izaya scoffed. "That means nothing when you're the one who did this to me in the first place."

"I know that."

"I find it funny that you called her. Did you memorize her phone number before throwing away her business card because you were planning to call her? After all, you like older women." The mere thought was enough to make him want to kill Shizuo even more and Izaya knew that he would never in a million years let Shizuka go out with a beast like Heiwajima Shizuo.

"I remembered her name, so I asked Onishi to help me find her," Shizuo explained.

That weasel, Izaya though angrily. He would have to have another conversation with Onishi and hopefully make him understand, once and for all, that he couldn't go around helping his enemies. On the bright side, Shizuo wasn't interested in Shizuka and that was enough to calm him down a little. "Next time you want to help, don't," he said and with that he closed the subject.

"I understand."

"This is not why I called you though. I called because you have something of mine. I want it back."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Besides, it's not yours to begin with," Shizuo reminded him since it looked like Izaya had forgotten that it was Celty's head and not just something he had collected for fun.

So he still has it, Izaya thought, a small sound of relief escaping his lips. "It was given to me in exchange for something. You? You just stole it."

"If you kill me, the head will be sent to Celty," Shizuo warned. He didn't mind dying by Izaya's hands, but he couldn't allow that to happen yet, not after seeing the video.

Izaya's grip on the phone tightened. "You don't want to play this game with me, Shizu-chan. You'll only end up losing."

"I'm willing to risk it."

"I don't think you understand," Izaya hissed angrily. "I will get what I want and in the process I'll make you wish you had never been born."

"Like I said, I'll take my chances."

"You have until tonight," Izaya made it clear before ending the call and nearly throwing the phone out the window.

You really want me to destroy you, don't you, beast? If that's the case, then I will grant your wish.

***

Sometimes during the afternoon, after talking to his neighbors and not finding out anything useful, Shizuo made his way to the hospital once he realized that the sword wound wasn't going to close and that he needed stitches. He also needed it taken care of since Aozaki had called and told him that if he didn't get his ass to the Awakusu-kai headquarters, he was going to have his hide. He'd thought about explaining why he'd gone missing the previous day, but he didn't think that more people seeing that video would be a good idea since they too might think that Izaya was the one hitting Kasuka.

"How did you get this wound?" Sakamoto asked, frowning.

"Katana," Shizuo answered truthfully since he didn't see any reason to lie about it. "Also your uncle is dead," he then added.

The doctor gasped in surprise. "Are you sure?"

Shizuo nodded. "He tried to shoot me and someone blew his brains out before he could kill me."

The man nodded and proceeded to stitch up the cut. "I know that what I'm going to say next might make me a bad person, but to be honest, I'm glad that he's dead. He's done a lot of bad things over the years and I still get angry whenever I think about that time when he wanted to catch all of you guys because of Izaya. I mean, you were all just teenagers."

"He never did though, thanks to the courageous Sakamoto Ryo here," Shizuo said, smiling a little. Ohno's words still rang in his head whenever that man and his gang were mentioned and now more than ever he was grateful to the doctor for having warned them that day.

"Speaking of that, can you guys stop calling me Sakamoto and call me by name already? We've known each other for a long time now!"

"You're right. Ryo sounds better anyway," Shizuo agreed.

"Great! Also, we're done here," Ryo said and took off his gloves. "Try not to run too much if you don't want the wound to open again."

"I'll try," Shizuo said before he stood up and lowered the pants' leg. "And thanks."

"No problem!"

"I'll see you around," he then added as he made his way out, not really looking forward to seeing Aozaki.

***

After cleaning up the living room and taking a quick shower, Izaya spent the rest of the afternoon thinking how to destroy Shizuo once and for all, but no matter how many ideas came to mind, in the end, he always arrived to the same conclusion, which was that he would either have to kill Shizuo or break him. There was still about an hour until sunset, so when he heard someone knock on the door, he'd hoped that it was Shizuo since a part of him did not wish to go through with his plan. Even so, he was not looking forwards to seeing the beast, so he walked slowly to the door and opened it, not expecting to find Kadota there.

"Yo," Kadota saluted as he raised the bag he was holding in his hand. "I brought you some otoro."

"Come in," Izaya invited him after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"I see you cleaned up the place," Kadota remarked as he sat down on the couch.

Izaya followed, the two of them now facing each other. "Why are you here, Dotachin?" he asked, eyes glued to the bag since he couldn't look Kadota in the eyes.

"I thought you might be hungry, but mostly because I wanted to see how you were doing," Kadota admitted as he ran a hand over his face, looking extremely tired since he hadn't slept the night before.

"I'm not made of glass," Izaya announced loudly, more to himself than to Kadota because he badly wanted to believe it. The truth was that he felt like his already cracked psyche was in danger of shattering into a million pieces.

"I know you're not," Kadota agreed. "Actually, I think you're pretty strong."

Izaya laughed bitterly. "How can you say that after you saw me like that?"

"I've seen you with Shizuo a few times during the past few months and you looked okay in his presence. I don't think I would've been able to even talk to him, let alone meet up with him," he admitted after giving it some thought on his way there. As a man, he'd never considered such a danger, but the fact that even Izaya had fallen victim to such a cruel act proved that no one was safe.

"Thanks for the otoro," Izaya said, hoping that Kadota would leave already since he couldn't stand the thought of his schoolmate looking at him with pity.

"I'm sorry," Kadota said after a long sigh.

"For?"

"For figuring it out. Not because I have a problem with knowing, but because I know you would've preferred I'd never found out," Kadota explained. "You don't have to worry about it though," he assured him. "I won't treat you with kid gloves. You're still the bastard I've always known, the same one who still refuses to call me by my name."

At that comment, Izaya actually laughed and then blinked rapidly to chase away the beginning of tears he could feel gathering in his eyes.

"Also, you don't have to worry about me telling anyone about it. In fact, I won't ever mention it again, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm one phone call away."

Finally, Izaya raised his head and looked Kadota in the eyes. "Thanks, Dotachin."

"See what I mean?" Kadota said as he rolled his eyes. "It's Kadota, okay? Ka-do-ta."

"Okay, Dotachin," Izaya replied with a smile.

Kadota shook his head and stood up, glad to see Izaya looking a bit better than when he'd arrived there. "I'll see you around."

Izaya waited until Kadota had closed the door behind him before raising a hand and waving good bye. "Thanks, Dotachin," he uttered softly. "Really, thanks."

***

That evening, Izaya waited with bated breath for the beast to show up, but Shizuo never did. He then spent the entire night pacing around the apartment, trying to make up his mind whether he should do it or not. It wasn't that he didn't think Shizuo deserved it, but he was more worried about how doing such a thing would affect his own mind. In the end, he decided to go through with it. He’d made the call, discussed the arrangement and then passed out from exhaustion in his desk chair sometimes during the morning. He didn't wake up until noon when he put the Shizuo issue aside and decided to focus on finding Adabashi. It wasn't that he hadn't been trying to find him until then, but that he hadn’t been as motivated before. At that moment, his hatred for the psycho was so strong that he sent a message to all his contacts, offering a big sum of money to anyone who provided any useful information.

The next few days went by slowly, but it probably felt that way because he hadn't gotten much sleep and instead spent his time talking to people on the phone or meeting them in person, deciding that any effort was worth it if it helped find the stalker. He didn’t want Adabashi to be found only so that the man would get punished for his crimes, but because he was certain that the man already knew about what Shizuo had done to him. Clearly that video was Adabashi’s way of letting him know that he had all the information he needed to go after the one who'd set him up to get killed by Ikebukuro's strongest.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do with Adabashi once he found him, but he knew that he couldn't allow the police to get their hands on him first since the psycho would surely tell them everything he knew if only to spite him. The last thing Izaya needed was for the whole world to find out what had been done to him. The thought terrified him almost as much as Shizuo did.

Luckily, on the fifth day, he finally received a call regarding Adabashi. To his surprise, it was none other than Ran.

"Why can't you get the information yourself?" Izaya asked in frustration since he was tired and the last thing he wanted to do was to leave the apartment.

"Because the guy wants money," Ran explained, he too sounding annoyed. "A lot of money."

"Give him what you have and I'll pay you back later," Izaya promised.

"You don't understand," Ran said with a sigh. "It's not pocket change he wants."

"Is the information even worth it?"

"He said that he used to work for Adabashi's father and that he knows of a house the man used to own outside of Tokyo."

"I've already done my research on that. Those houses have new owners now."

"Not this one. Apparently, the guy's family didn't know about it."

Finally, Izaya let out a sigh and stood up. "Fine, I'll go see him. Give me the address."

"He's homeless now, but I can lead you to him," Ran offered. "Then you'll give me my money, right?"

"If the information proves to be useful," Izaya clarified since he had no plans of giving that bastard anything for free. He'd never liked Ran to begin with and he wasn't about to start now. "Where can we meet?"

"I'll come pick you up."

"Okay."

Izaya then pocketed the phone and went upstairs to change, hoping that Ran was right and that the information the man might provide would lead him to Adabashi. He still didn't know what to do with the stalker, but he was seriously considering asking Ueda once again if he could take Adabashi out of the country and lock him up somewhere far away where the psycho couldn't do any more harm. The other option was asking the Awakusu-kai to take care of him, but he still wasn't very fond of the idea of killing humans. Shizuo on the other hand... well, that was a different story.

Ran knocked on the door about half an hour later and the two of them made their way to San'ya where the man lived.

"How much longer till we get there?" Izaya asked, feeling extremely impatient.

"We're almost there," Ran said as he turned right and headed in the direction of a house that looked like it could collapse at the next earthquake.

Once there, Ran pushed the door open and the two of them walked in, squinting their eyes as they tried to get accustomed to the darkness.

"I brought him here."

Izaya's eyes settled on the form he could see lying next to the opposite wall. "I heard that you have some information for me," he said and hoped that the man hadn't drank himself to death before they arrived there. Slowly, he approached him, only for the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up when he heard a new voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"Thank you," the voice said. "As you can see, I also brought what you wanted."

A chill ran down his spine when he recognized the voice and he pulled out his switchblades and flicked them open, heart beating wildly inside his chest.

"You s-shouldn't be alive," he said, stuttering a bit since he realized how screwed he was at that very moment. His eyes darted around the house, hoping to find a way out of there, but Ran was blocking the window while Slon the door, holding a gun in his hand. It was also then when he realized that the one who had attacked Dougen was none other than Slon and not some new partner like Vorona had claimed. He knew all that because Akabayashi had told him about it and asked him to find the guy. I should've known, he thought angrily.

A pained moan came from the man on the floor and Izaya almost jumped in surprise.

"I...za..."

"No!" Izaya exclaimed, the panic he was already feeling intensifying when he thought that he recognized the man's voice. Still holding a switchblade pointed in Slon's direction, he crouched next to the fallen figure and moved him a bit so that he could see the man's face better. "Dotachin!" he screamed and tried to pull him up, but it was hard to do so with one arm and he didn't dare lower his switchblade in front of the two bastards blocking the exits.

"...za...ya," Kadota struggled to speak but he could barely hold on to any thought after the violent blows to the head he had received.

Izaya didn't need to ask why Kadota was there since he already knew the answer. "Ran, you bastard!"

"We made a deal. You were going to help me get revenge and I was going to work for you. You were taking too long, so I made a new deal with Slon here," Ran explained.

"I'm grateful to Ran for making it look like I had died," Slon said before he turned to the man. "I'll be on my way now," he then added as he took out a flashlight so that he could see better in the darkness and shot Izaya in the leg, careful to not hit any major artery.

Izaya collapsed on the floor and small sounds of pain slipped past his lips as he desperately struggled to stand back up.

"Sure, but before you go, there's something I absolutely need," Ran said before he made his way to Izaya after pulling out the hammer he'd been hiding beneath his jacket.

"Just die," Izaya hissed and tried to stab him in the leg, but Ran swung the weapon, the hammer hitting his head and disorientating him enough for the traitor to divest him of his switchblades. The room was spinning around him and he raised a trembling hand to his head, the sight of more of his own blood enough to increase the feeling of nausea he was already experiencing. He was still trying to get the room to stop spinning when Ran grabbed his jacket and started pulling on it. That triggered a panic attack and he started struggling again, trying to fight off his assailant.

Slon, who was getting impatient with the while thing, walked up to them, grabbed Izaya by the throat, pulled him up and helped Ran acquire the jacket he seemed to desperately want.

"I'm going to need this for when I'll pin your murder on Aoba," Ran said, laughing. "I think it's about time that my brother gets to experience prison."

"I'm going to kill you," Izaya promised as Slon started dragging him away from there while Ran raised the hammer and began hitting Kadota with it, the sounds of pain he could hear from inside the house making Izaya worry that Ran might just actually kill Kadota. He was then thrown into a van, kicking and screaming, until Slon placed cuffs around his wrists and ankles and then covered his mouth with duct tape.

Nonononono, the word kept repeating itself in his mind as he tried to fight off the panic he was drowning in. He'd expected Adabashi to come after him, not Slon. He shouldn't have trusted Ran. He should've gone and checked himself that Slon was dead instead of trusting a piece of paper. Looking back, he realized that he must've been pretty messed up at the time to make such a mistake.

Calm down and try to find a way to escape, he reminded himself since he knew that once the van stopped, Slon would kill him for sure. He tried the handcuffs, but the damn things were too tight. He didn't give up though and continued trying to pull one of his hands out, not stopping even after blood started to flow down his fingers. His wrists were a bloody mess after a while and he tried to use the blood to slip them off, but that too didn't work and eventually he stopped moving altogether, too exhausted to continue. The van drove for a long time and Izaya tried to free his hands once again after catching his breath, but he ended up being so focused on his task that he didn't even notice the van had stopped until Slon opened the door and dragged him out. The duct tape was ripped from his mouth and Izaya did the only thing he could do in his situation: he tried to bargain.

"I'll give you money if you let me live," he offered. "A lot of money."

Instead of answering, Slon trapped him between the van and his body before placing a hand on his face. "W-What are you d-doing?" Izaya stuttered pathetically as a shudder went through his body at the thought of Slon using him before killing him.

"Hold still," Slon ordered as he used his thumb and index finger to pull apart Izaya's upper and lower eyelids.

"No..." Izaya uttered brokenly when he realized what Slon was planning to do. To his horror, the Russian assassin pulled out a knife and brought it to his face. "P-Please," he repeated as tears started to gather in his eyes.

"I'll consider us to be even after this," Slon said and drove the knife into his Izaya's left eye.

Izaya screamed before the pain even registered, the horror of it all too much for his already fragile mind to handle. There was a flash of light before everything went dark in his left eyes and he collapsed on the ground, screaming in agony and struggling to bring a hand to his eyes regardless of the fact that his wrists were tied behind his back. A few moments later he felt himself slip into unconsciousness and he welcomed the darkness, almost grateful to escape the horror that was the real world.

"You deserved this," Slon said as he took a piece of cloth and wrapped it around Izaya's head to cover the damaged eye. He then grabbed him by the ankle of his good leg and started dragging him towards the abandoned building, hoping that the bastard he was about to meet would honor the deal they'd made.

"You're finally here!" Adabashi squealed in delight as he walked out the door. He'd heard the screams and he was looking forward to getting his hands on the Informant so that he could make him suffer.

"I kept my end of the deal; now bring me Yuuhei," Slon said and showed him the gun as a warning to not fuck with him.

"I'm sorry, but I think that I’m going to keep him for a while longer," Adabashi announced, sounding extremely calm for someone who could get shot at any moment.

"Don't screw with me!" Slon warned as he raised the gun.

Slowly, Adabashi raised his right hand. "See this? If you shoot me, I will let go of this button and Kasuka's head will go BOOM," he explained, laughing. "I still need him for a while longer, but I promise that you can have him once I'm done. For now, how about you bring Orihara inside?" he suggested before he turned around and headed in the direction of the door.

Slon followed, vowing to rip Adabashi Kisuke apart before finally killing him.

***

It was early in the morning and Shizuo was about to leave to meet up with Akabayashi when he heard a knock on the door. He pressed the handle, wondering who it was, and was met with the sight of a man, who seemed to be around his age, dressed in a dark gray suit and smiling at him.

"What do you want?" Shizuo asked as he stepped out of the apartment and closed the door.

"I'm going to need you to come with us," the man said and that's when Shizuo saw two other men further down the hallway.

Shizuo scoffed, surprised that there were still people out there brave enough to challenge him. "I'm a bit busy right now, but I promise to break your bones next time we meet," he said and started walking away, only to stop a few moments later when a phone was shoved in his face and he recognized the house shown in the live feed. Fear and fury intertwined and he grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him into the nearest wall. "What the fuck is this?" he growled.

"I suggest you quietly follow us if you don't want your parents' brains to be splattered all over their bed," the man threatened and continued to smile, waiting to be released.

Shizuo retracted his hand and staggered backwards, heart hammering inside his chest as he tried to understand what was going on. The man placed an arm around his shoulders and Shizuo allowed himself to be escorted down the stairs.

"You see those two guys following behind us?" they're filming us as we speak. If anything happens to us, the person on the other side will see it and your parents will die," the man explained. "So don't even think about attacking any of us. All you have to do to keep them safe is to follow us quietly. Do you understand? Nod if you do."

Shizuo nodded.

"Step inside," the man ordered and Shizuo went inside the black van parked in front of the building, wondering if this was in any way related to Izaya.

"Who sent you?" he asked in a trembling voice as his eyes darted around him, trying to think of a way to escape without getting his parents killed.

"I don't know his name," the man explained, "but he gave us a lot of money to do this."

The needle of a syringe was inserted into his neck and Shizuo barely stopped himself from crushing the guy's skull with his bare hands. He was livid with fury and yet the fear was so overwhelming that all he could do was follow their instructions and hope that his parents got out of it alive. His eyes darted around the phones pointed in his direction, feeling more trapped than he'd ever felt in his life. He thought about asking what they were planning to do, but he had a feeling that he didn't want to know so he chose to remain silent for the rest of the trip. All he knew was that whatever they had given him was making him sluggish and that moving around would be difficult.

It felt like too little time had passed until the van stopped and the engine was turned off, but that was most likely because he was scared by what awaited him once they arrived there.

The man grabbed him by the arm and guided him out of the van since he was having a hard time walking by himself, Shizuo's eyes going wide when he saw that they were standing outside of a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. He was pushed inside and then the doors closed behind him, the finality of that sound nearly making his heart burst out of his chest.

"That didn't take long," a fifth man, who had apparently been waiting for them, said as he made his way to him, smirking. "So he's the great Heiwajima Shizuo, huh?"

"He doesn't look so great right now," the driver commented as he sat in one of the plastic chairs surrounding a round wooden table. The rest of the warehouse was filled with boxes but there was still quite some room left.

The one holding him by the arm pushed him into a chair and then half sat on the table in front of him.

"You can call me Kuro," he said.

Shizuo wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off, but he didn't dare make a move because of those two assholes in a live call with the one sitting outside his parents' home. "What do you want?" he finally asked in a tone betraying the fear and anger he was feeling.

"Well, Shizuo," Kuro started, "you only have two options."

Shizuo swallowed the lump in his throat and listened quietly as the man explained to him why they were there.

"The first option is that you tell us the location of the object you stole from our employer and then we kill you."

So this is Izaya's doing after all, Shizuo thought as he gripped the arm of the chair tighter, for once not breaking it because of how weak he was as a result of the drug coursing through his veins. "He shouldn't have gotten my parents involved," Shizuo hissed the words before he could stop himself.

"Actually, he didn't," Kuro said and he proceeded to explain. "He only told us what drug to use on you and in which quantity. I didn't really like that idea because it would've made you unable to move, and you see, I like my prey squirming."

Shizuo shuddered at the look in the man's eyes and turned his head away, an ominous feeling that something was going to go very wrong taking root in his mind and refusing to leave.

"Anyway, I wasn't going to risk going against you with only that drug as a weapon, so I came up with plan B, which is blowing your parents' brains out if you don't do what I tell you to do."

"What is my other option?" Shizuo asked slowly since the drug was making it hard for him to talk.

"We break you. Once broken, you're going to tell us the location anyway," Kuro said, sounding very sure of himself.

Shizuo pondered for a few minutes, so scared of what breaking him meant that he almost considered choosing death. The problem with that was that he didn't want to die before finding Kasuka and bringing him home safely, but at the same time he had no idea if he'd even be able to do anything if those men truly succeeded in breaking him. His thoughts went to Izaya and he cursed the insect for doing this to him even if he couldn't really blame him for wanting to either see him dead or broken. A part of him even thought he deserved it, especially after ruining the fragile relationship he'd succeeded in building with Izaya, but he was still mad that his parents had ended up getting involved. It was his fault though. He'd fallen for Adabashi's trap and he hated himself for being so stupid. I should've trusted you more, Izaya, he thought guiltily.

"Have you decided?" Kuro asked.

"Yes," Shizuo said as he raised his head and their eyes met. "I've decided."

Chapter 94: Breaking the Illusions

Izaya had woken up sometimes during the night, but between the pain he was experiencing and the horror of having been stabbed in the eye, he ended up passing out again. It was light outside when he woke up again, and this time it took every last ounce of energy he had left to not throw up at the thought of completely losing his eye. He wasn't a doctor, but he had a feeling that any sudden movement might further increase the damage already done. He despised Slon from the bottom of his heart, but he was grateful that the assassin had at least put some bandages around his head and leg. The Russian had obviously done it so that he wouldn't die too soon, but that only gave Izaya more time to try to come up with a way to escape. He was terrified though. It wasn't even that cold outside, and yet he couldn't stop shivering to save his life. At first, he'd kept telling himself that it was because of the blood loss, but that didn't explain the tears gathering in his good eye and running down his face in torrents.

The horrible situation he was in wasn't even the only thing on his mind. He also couldn't stop thinking about Kadota. The man had looked pretty beat up last time he saw him and Izaya didn't even want to imagine how much damage Ran might've inflicted afterwards with that hammer. He didn't really consider Kadota as being a friend like Shinra, but he still didn't want him to die, especially after the things the man had done and said to help him during and after his breakdown.

He looked around him through his one blurry eye, trying to figure out where he was. The windows were barred but it didn't look like a prison, which made him think that perhaps it was some kind of old and abandoned mental asylum. All he knew for certain was that he was on the second floor and that he was going to suffer a world of pain if he didn't find a way to open the door. He rapidly blinked to chase away the tears and then started looking around the room, hoping to find something that he could insert into the lock while at the same time trying to ignore the stabbing pain radiating from his left eye and right leg. Unfortunately, it looked like Slon had cleaned out the room before putting him in there, most likely knowing that he shouldn't underestimate him.

"Dammit!" he cursed loudly and barely restrained himself from punching the wall. He was scared, he was tired and he was hurting. Please, anyone... Shizu-chan, he thought and immediately hated himself for even thinking that the beast could save him again. Shizuo might have saved him a couple of times in the past and Izaya had truly been grateful, but that was before the idiot had fallen into Adabashi's trap.

He had just sat down in the corner again when he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps and he raised his head and gazed at the door with an eye that betrayed the fear he felt at the thought of Slon coming to torture him. The assassin was not only stronger, but also uninjured. Besides his intelligence, the only advantage Izaya had in fights were his speed and agility, but at that moment, he couldn't use his body since besides the fact that his leg was injured, his ankles and wrists were cuffed which meant that he was only left with using his brain. A few moments later the small meal tray door opened and Izaya's heart stopped when the person lowered his head and waved, finally showing his face.

"I bet you're surprised," Adabashi said as he started pacing in front of the room. "I've been looking forward to catching you this whole time."

Izaya pushed himself further into the corner, the image of a really broken Kasuka flashing into his mind and reminding him that the man outside the door was a sadistic psychopath. "You've been working with Slon this whole time," he stated in a surprisingly calm voice even though his heart was hammering inside his chest.

"Kind of," Adabashi answered. "He did, after all, save me back when you tried to get rid of me. You see, Slon really hates your guts, which is why he also saved Heiwajima Shizuo after you left him to bleed to death."

A gasp of surprised slipped past Izaya's lips and he was suddenly feeling even more terrified than before at the thought of Slon spying on him this whole time.

"You can relax though," Adabashi said, smirking. "I told him everything before he went to get you, and since he must've felt really sorry for you, an eye is the only thing he took from you."

Izaya would've laughed if the shame he was feeling wasn't choking the life out of him. Am I this pathetic that even someone I had tried to kill would feel sorry for me?

"The only thing he seems to care about is getting Kasuka out of here," Adabashi continued, "which means that you no longer have to worry about him. Now I have you all to myself. We're going to have so much fun~"

Adabashi's tone sent chills down his spine and Izaya couldn't help but curl into a tighter ball as the promise of the pain to come rang in his head along with the sounds of Adabashi's laughter.

"You and Heiwajima are gonna pay, but I'm not going to worry about him for now since I have you here. Actually, you know what? Since you're awake, I think that I'm going to start now," Adabashi decided as he pulled the keys out of the pocket of his pants.

Despite the terror coursing through his veins, Izaya still couldn't help but laugh at Adabashi's words. "I'm afraid you might be too late."

"What?"

"Shizu-chan might already be dead."

"What did you do?" Adabashi hissed as he pushed the key into the lock, opened the door and stomped inside.

Izaya tried his hardest not to flinch when the man grabbed him by the hair and forced him to look up.

"What did you do?" Adabashi repeated the question and moved his hand over his prisoner’s face in such a way that the thumb was barely touching the injured eye. "Tell me!"

"I hired someone to kill him!" Izaya answered so fast that he couldn't even believe it himself, but the thumb was still there, applying a bit of pressure, which meant that Adabashi wanted to know more. At that moment, Izaya realized that having Shizuo brought there as well might increase his chances of escaping, if only for the fact that the beast could bring down doors and go through walls. "It might already be too late, but I can call and find out."

Adabashi took out his phone with the other hand. "Give me the number or else..." he warned as he applied more pressure to the bandaged eye, making Izaya hiss in pain. If Shizuo was dead, he was going to crush Izaya's eye and then beat him to a bloody pulp. No one took away his chance at revenge and got away with it.

Left with no other choice, Izaya told him the number and hoped that Shizuo was alive since he was scared of what Adabashi might do in case that he wasn't.

"Who are you?"

"Is Heiwajima Shizuo dead yet?" Adabashi asked, voice dripping with anger.

"I will ask again, who are you?"

"That's none of your fucking business, just answer the question!"

Izaya knew that it could end badly, so he decided to interfere. "Give me the phone."

"Try anything funny and I'll kill you, slowly and painfully," Adabashi promised.

Once Adabashi handed him the phone, Izaya coughed and then began to talk in a slightly changed voice since he didn't want the other man to know who he was. "It's me now, the man who hired you, so please answer the question."

"He's not dead yet," Kuro answered, sounding annoyed.

"In that case, stop whatever you're doing."

"Only if you give me the abort code," Kuro reminded him.

"Five-seven-zero-nine-two."

"Understood."

"What is that?" Adabashi growled as he ripped the phone from Izaya's fingers. "What was that number?"

"The abort code," Izaya answered and hoped that Adabashi would finally pull back his hand.

"I'll send a man to pick him up," Adabashi told whoever was on the other end. "Where can you two meet?"

Izaya listened intently, hoping that Kuro would just do what Adabashi had asked since he really didn't want the psycho to lose his temper. A few moments later the thumb was removed from his eye and he finally breathed in relief when it looked like the two on the phone were arranging a meeting.

"I guess that we're going to have to play later," Adabashi muttered before he turned around and left.

***

To say that Slon was feeling livid was an understatement. Not only had Adabashi not allowed him to see Kasuka yet, but he had the audacity to send him on another errand, like he was some sort of fool he could boss around. "Ungrateful bastard," he hissed.

"Now, now, Slon, don't be so mad. I'll let you see Kasuka as soon as you get back."

Slon glowered at the phone, pissed off that his plan to make a deal with Shizuo had been ruined. Adabashi didn't trust him at all which was why Slon was in a video chat with Adabashi who had warned him that if he ended the call, he would chop off one of Kasuka's hands. "We had a deal," he reminded him and then tore his eyes away from the screen to look at the road ahead.

"Like I said, once you bring me Heiwajima Shizuo, you can have Kasuka."

"I'm almost there," he announced as he took a left turn and then slowed down as he approached the black van he'd been told about. The men inside must have heard him because the doors opened and a guy wearing a gray suit stepped out, pulling Heiwajima Shizuo after him.

"He's all yours now," Kuro said as he pushed him in the direction of the one-eyed bandaged man he'd been told he would meet.

"You..." Shizuo uttered in shock when he recognized the man as being the one who had attacked Dougen. "Why are you here...?"

"Shut up and follow," Slon ordered as he grabbed him by the arm and led him to the van.

Shizuo followed, mostly because he wanted nothing more than to get as far away from Kuro as possible.

"Sit in the front."

Shizuo nodded and got in, flinching a bit when Kuro smirked at him and waved him good bye.

"Give him the phone," Adabashi said and Shizuo found himself jumping in his seat at the unexpected sound.

He took the phone the bandaged man offered him and then looked at the screen, not expecting to see Adabashi's face there. His eyes went wide and then narrowed into murderous slits, the hatred he felt towards the man almost enough to give him the strength he needed to crush the phone even with the drug still coursing through his veins. The plastic cracked and that's when the other man, whoever he was, smacked him over the head and told him that if the call ended for any reason, Kasuka would lose one of his hands.

"I want to see both your faces, so hold the phone properly," Adabashi ordered and Shizuo did his best to obey since he didn't want Kasuka to further get hurt.

"Now for a bit of fun. Tell Heiwajima who you are."

"Before I tell you my name," Slon said as he turned to Shizuo, "know that I'm only doing this to free your brother." He then set his eyes on the road again and gripped the wheel tighter, hoping that Shizuo would be able to control himself and not attack him. "I'm Slon."

An angry roar erupted from Shizuo's throat and he raised his bloody left hand, only to earn a gasp of surprise from Adabashi when instead of punching Slon, the fist crashed into his own face.

"Whoa, you're crazy!" Adabashi exclaimed in shock, but Shizuo couldn't hear him through the ringing in his ears and the violent beating of his heart.

All he knew was that he had to calm himself down if he didn't want to be responsible for Kasuka losing a hand. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, constantly reminding himself that he couldn't kill Slon or break the phone if he wanted answers. "Where is Kasuka?" he asked, his voice dripping with the anger he could barely restrain.

"You'll see him soon. Slon is taking you there."

Kasuka, I will save you no matter what, Shizuo promised. For the first time in a long time, he could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

***

Adabashi was pacing in front of the building as he waited for the two men to arrive, his eyes glued to the screen since he didn't trust Slon to not betray him. He didn't blame the Russian though, especially after stealing Kasuka from him. A few minutes later the sounds of an engine disturbed the peaceful silence and that's when Adabashi knew they'd arrived. He almost couldn't contain his joy when the van finally stopped, but he had to admit that he was rather scared of Shizuo since it looked like the man was barely stopping himself from attacking. Adabashi was certain that the only reason he was still alive was that he'd explained to the blonde idiot through the phone that he had a dead man's switch in his hand and that if he stopped pressing it, the collar he'd placed around Kasuka's neck would explode.

"I want to see him," Shizuo growled, his body trembling with the effort it took to not wring Adabashi's neck.

"I'll bring him to you, but first, follow me," Adabashi said and headed inside. He led Shizuo through the hallway and then up the stairs to the second floor where he had a room prepared especially for him. "Get in," he ordered, sounding excited.

"What are these...?" Shizuo asked as his eyes roamed over the many wires spread along the outside walls of the room, but before he could get an answer, Slon kicked him hard in the back and sent him flying into the room. He groaned as his body made contact with the floor, reminding him of the various injuries Kuro's men had inflicted on his body.

The door closed behind him by the time he managed to stand up again and then he ended up freezing in his tracks when Adabashi's words reached his ears. "There are explosives on every wall of this room. You'll die if you try to punch your way through them.

"I want to see my brother!" Shizuo shouted as Adabashi began to walk away with Slon following after him. "You said I could see him. You bastard! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Adabashi ignored him and lead Slon to the basement where he kept Kasuka, knowing that the assassin might end up losing it soon if he didn't see the actor. "Go in, see him, and then come out," he said after unlocking the door. "I need you to help me carry Izaya, but you can come back here afterwards. I can't let him leave for a few more days since I need him to punish Izaya, but I promise that you can have him afterwards."

As much as Slon wanted to murder Adabashi right then and there for lying to him once again, he took a deep breath, flipped the light switch and walked down the stairs, his fury only increasing at the sight of the broken creature that was Hanejima Yuuhei. The man was huddled in the corner, chains clanking louder as his trembling increased the closer Slon got. Once he realized that he was the cause, he stopped, his eyes glued to the many cuts and bruises covering most of the once unblemished body. He wanted to say something, to tell him that he would soon get him out of there, but he couldn't find his voice.

"Come help me and then you can do whatever you want to him as long as you stay here," Adabashi said.

Slon didn't need to be told twice. He turned around and nearly ran up the stairs, knowing that he needed a few minutes to calm down after the horror show he'd just witnessed. "You truly are a monster," he found himself saying when he met Adabashi's eyes.

"Thank you!" Adabashi chirped happily and the two of them headed to the place where he'd locked Izaya up.

***

After his discussion with Adabashi, Izaya couldn't stop thinking about Shizuo (especially after he thought he'd heard the sounds of the beast shouting from somewhere in the building), and hoped that Kuro hadn't done too much damage since he needed a fully functional beast to get out of there. His eye and leg hurt pretty badly and he'd worried more than once that he'd pass out, but such a thing didn't happen and even though the agony he was in was driving him insane, he was decided to remain awake. He was in the process of biting his nails as an outlet for the pain when he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps, only that this time there were two pairs instead of one. The door opened a few moments later and Izaya nearly stopped breathing when he saw Slon. Maybe Adabashi had lied to him and Slon taking his eye was only the beginning of the torture that awaited him at the hands of the Russian assassin.

Slon bent down to pick him up, hoping to just get it over with quickly, but Izaya started struggling, trying to kick him with his bound legs. "Stop it! I'm only going to carry you."

Izaya obeyed and prayed that it was the truth. He expected Slon to throw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but to his surprise, the man took him into his arms.

"Lead the way," Slon told Adabashi and then waited a few seconds for the sadist to walk out of the room before he lowered his head and whispered into Izaya's ear. "Keep him busy while I try to get Yuuhei out of here."

The words had been so unexpected that Izaya almost thought he'd imagined them, but Slon's intense gaze told him they'd been real. He nodded slowly, heart hammering inside his chest as he wondered if Slon was his ticket out of there instead of Shizuo. "Where are we going?" Izaya asked since they seemed to be taking him in the direction of what he thought had been Shizuo's voice.

"Oh, I just want to have a talk with the both of you," Adabashi said and then finally stopped in front of a dangerous-looking room.

"W-What is this? Izaya asked, voice trembling at the sight of the many wires attached to the walls and door.

"Izaya!" Shizuo shouted and approached the door, shocked that the flea was there as well.

"Back off!" Adabashi ordered as he opened the small door used to give patients their trays of food. He waited until Shizuo complied before turning to Slon and giving him the next order. "Take Orihara's clothes off."

Now that he could guess what Adabashi was planning, Izaya started struggling again, the fear of what he knew would happen too much for him to handle. He didn't even care if he hurt his eye; all he wanted to do was to get away. He could hear Shizuo shouting at Slon in the background to leave him alone, but the words were of little consolation when they were coming from someone who was just as trapped as he was.

Slon decided to do as he was told, at that point willing to do pretty much anything if it meant saving Yuuhei. He took out his switchblade and started cutting into Izaya's clothes, trying his best to not accidentally cut the skin as well. He now understood why Izaya had done what he had done and he had to admit that he felt a bit sorry for the man, especially when he could see the despair on his face as he rid him of his clothes. Once done, he pushed Izaya into the room and immediately walked away, vowing to come back and kill Adabashi after taking Kasuka to safety.

Shizuo, who had turned around the second the door started to open, could do nothing but stand there and wait for Izaya to pick himself up. Meanwhile, he couldn't let Izaya remain naked like that, so he took off his vest and then proceeded to unbutton his shirt.

"W-What are you d-doing?" Izaya stuttered pathetically as he crawled into the corner, the terror he was experiencing increasing tenfold at the sight of Shizuo taking his clothes off.

"Giving you my shirt," Shizuo quickly answered when he realized what Izaya must have been thinking.

"Sure, you can do that," Adabashi said, chuckling, "but you're still going to fuck him."

"No, I won't; never, no matter what," Shizuo made it clear as he threw the shirt over his head and hoped that it landed somewhere close to the terrified flea.

Izaya grabbed it and pulled it over his naked body with a speed he didn't know he possessed while keeping his eye glued to the beast. No matter what Shizuo said, Izaya knew that all Adabashi had to do to force him to obey was to bring up Kasuka.

Adabashi sighed. "Why not? It's not like you haven't fucked him before. I mean, you must've enjoyed it, so why not again?"

"Are you stupid?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask, his tone one of disbelief. "I'd rather die."

"What if I bring Kasuka here and torture him in front of you? Would you be willing to then?"

"Shizu-chan never will," Izaya managed to say in a steady voice, more to convince himself than anyone else. "I trust him."

Shizuo's breath hitched in his throat and he felt his heart further break. He knew that Izaya was lying and that was exactly why it felt as though he was drowning in sadness. Izaya had never trusted him and he never would, especially not after everything that happened. And yet, for some reason, Shizuo never wished Izaya to trust him more than he did at that moment.

"Shut up, bitch," Adabashi said, his voice dripping with disgust before he added, laughing. "I bet you enjoyed it, you little slut. Everyone knows that Heiwajima would've never been able to catch you, which means that you must've let him get his hands on you on purpose."

"I didn't... I..." Izaya uttered brokenly. "I hit my head..."

"You don't need to explain anything," Shizuo said as he turned around and approached the door, all the while avoiding looking at Izaya who was sitting down in the corner. Once there, he bent forward a bit until he could see Adabashi who was leaning against the opposite wall, smirking. "Ha! You're the one to speak," Shizuo started, letting all the hatred and disgust he felt towards the man drip into his voice. "If I remember correctly, I had only just broken a few of yours bones when you started begging Izaya to help you." Adabashi's smirk fell and Shizuo considered that a small victory. Then, out of nowhere, some device Adabashi was carrying started beeping and Shizuo furrowed his brows in confusion, wondering what was going on.

"It looks like Slon betrayed me after all," Adabashi said with a sigh as he took out the gun he'd been carrying inside his jacket and ran in the direction of the stairs.

It was at that moment when Izaya remembered that he was supposed to keep Adabashi busy, but by then it was too late.

***

After looking to see if he could deactivate the collar himself and realizing that he couldn't, he decided to take Kasuka out of there, certain that once the device was out of range, Adabashi could no longer blow it up. He'd brought a bolt cutter from the van and proceeded to cut the chains, all the while talking to Kasuka who somehow appeared to have calmed down a bit once the promise to get him out of there had been spoken. He knew that it was a risk and that it might not work, but he no longer trusted Adabashi to keep his word after the man had already broken it so many times.

"I'll pick you up now," Slon announced and proceeded to do just that. He was glad that Kasuka was not struggling, but he could tell that the man was terrified and it made him hate Adabashi even more for completely crushing the actor's defiance. Kasuka was so thin that he practically weighed nothing, which made it easy for Slon to run up the stairs and then out of the building, choosing to not take the car since there was a big chance that Adabashi would hear it.

He had only been running for a few minutes when he heard the sound of a gun going off and he was hit in the back, the impact knocking the air out of his lungs. He took a few more steps and then fell down to his knees, cursing under his breath before he let Kasuka go and dashed into the thick vegetation on the right side of the path. Unfortunately, a rain of bullets descended upon the area and he was hit by two more, one in the shoulder and one in the leg. He almost laughed at the thought that he, an assassin, would get killed by someone like Adabashi, but he was coughing blood and he couldn't afford to stick around and get shot again, nor could he shoot Adabashi since the bastard dying meant Kasuka dying as well.

Reluctantly, he started limping away, wincing when the sounds of Adabashi cursing and hitting Kasuka reached his ears. At least the man was not coming after him, most likely too much of a coward to risk a direct confrontation. Once he was far enough he took out his phone, sent a message with an address and instructions on how to get there and then dialed Vorona.

"Slon?"

"Yeah, it's me. I need your help," he said as he leaned against a tree, his face contorted in pain.

"Then I will assist you," she said, no hesitation in her voice.

"I need you to save Yuuhei. His brother and Izaya are here as well. Adabashi Kisuke has them," Slon managed to say right before he started coughing blood. "Kill him. This man needs to die no matter what. Bring help if you can," he then added as he slid down the tree until he was sitting down on the ground.

"Are you injured?"

"I'm sorry, but I.. I don't think that I'm going to make it," Slon said and the phone slipped from his hand just before he succumbed to the darkness he could no longer fight.

***

Vorona's heart was hammering inside her chest at the thought of Slon dying as she made her way up to Kishitani Shinra's apartment since she knew that Celty Sturluson lived there as well. Shizuo had told her to give Celty the box if something happened to him, and that's exactly what Vorona was planning to do along with asking the Black Rider for assistance since Slon had suggested she brought help. She banged her fist against the door a few times and then burst into the apartment, pushing Shinra aside since she couldn't afford to waste any time.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Shinra shouted after her, the commotion bringing Celty out of her room.

"This is for you," Vorona said as she placed the box on the table. "Shizuo, his brother and Orihara are in danger. I need your assistance."

Celty realized that time was of the essence, so she proceeded to open the box, since it seemed important, never expecting to find her head inside it. She reached for it and all the memories she had lost came back as soon as she touched it, reminding her of her duty and why she could not live amongst humans.

"Celty, no!" Shinra cried as he grabbed her by the arm, fearing that if he let go, he would lose her forever. "Don't leave me," he begged as tears started gathering in his eyes.

For a few moments, Celty considered pretending to have forgotten everything, thus making it easier on Shinra to let her go, but the fact that people were in danger and needed saving prevented her from doing do. She simply couldn't walk away when their friends' lives were in danger. "I'm ready. Let's go."

"They may require a doctor," Vorona said right before she turned on her heels and walked out of the apartment, still in a bit of a shock after what she had just witnessed.

Celty and Shinra grabbed a few medical supplies they thought they might need, put them in a bag and then followed Vorona, Celty holding her head with her left arm while Shinra was glued to her right one. She had to admit that it pained her to see him so afraid of losing her.

"The display is abnormal. It will draw attention," Vorona said as she shot Celty a quick glance. "Please attach the head to the body if possible."

"Shinra, let go of my arm," Celty requested, but Shinra shook his head, refusing to let go. "Then take off my helmet." This time, Shinra did as he was told and Celty placed her head on the neck before using her shadows to stitch the two together. She had to admit that Vorona had come up with a pretty good idea.

Even though Shinra was terrified of a Celty who remembered her past, he couldn't look away from her beautiful blue eyes. "Don't leave me. Never leave me. I can't live without you," he whimpered in a broken voice. His heart felt heavy and it was as though he could barely breath, but Celty's promise to talk about it once everyone was safe put his mind at ease because it meant that his love wasn't planning to disappear without saying good bye.

"Take Shinra. I will get Ruri and then I will catch up," Celty told Vorona and between the two of them they managed to pull Shinra away from her.

"Celty, I love you!" Shinra shouted for everyone around them to hear. "I love you more than life itself!"

"You're an idiot," she uttered softly as she got on her bike and headed in the direction of Ruri's apartment, all the while struggling to be the Celty they knew and not the Dullahan she really was.

***

Shizuo didn't know what to say once Adabashi left, so the silence stretched for a while until he broke it by offering to break the cuffs. "I don't know if I can do it because of the drug they injected me with, but I can try."

Even though he was terrified of Shizuo, Izaya couldn't tear his eyes away from him. Besides the bloody left hand the beast was sporting and a few bruises here and there, Shizuo appeared to be okay, which was surprising since he'd expected him to be in a much worse shape. "What happened to you?"

Shizuo tensed and his hands balled into fists. "You know what happened."

"Not really," Izaya said as his eyes narrowed at the sight of Shizuo looking somewhat distressed. "I only told them to break you. I didn't specify how," Izaya revealed, "so that's why I'm asking you."

"Nothing happened. Now, do you want me to try to break the cuffs or not?" Shizuo repeated and hoped that Izaya would stop asking questions. The last thing he needed at that moment was to be reminded of that bastard Kuro.

"Yeah, try it," Izaya answered and tried to cover himself as much as possible before Shizuo turned around.

"What's with the bandages around your head?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask as he knelt in front of Izaya. At first, there was no answer, but then Izaya opened his mouth and Shizuo had to strain his ears to hear it.

"Slon stabbed me in the eye," he said and winced at his own words.

Shizuo, who was reaching for the cuffs, froze with his hands in mid-air. He knew what those words meant but he couldn't accept them. How could anyone ruin Izaya's beautiful face like that?

"Well? Are you going to try?" Izaya asked after a while when the silence became uncomfortable and it looked like Shizuo couldn't tear his eyes away from his face.

"M-Maybe Shinra can do something about it," Shizuo tried in an attempt to make Izaya feel better.

"I doubt it..."

"You never know," Shizuo said as he carefully placed his hands around Izaya's bloody wrists and cuffs and started pulling them away from one another. Normally, he would've easily broken the chain, but the drug was still affecting him and because of that it took a lot of effort until one of the links finally gave out. "Ankles next," Shizuo said softly.

Izaya was really nervous about this part since he didn't like anyone touching his lower body, especially Shizuo, but since he couldn't afford to leave the cuffs around his legs, he slowly stretched them, the feet now poking out from beneath the shirt he was covering himself with. He shuddered when Shizuo touched his legs but gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand still as the beast did his best to break the chain. Once his legs were freed as well he pulled them back beneath the shirt and made himself as small as possible once again.

The scary thing was that he was seriously starting to consider suicide as means of escape since he knew that he wouldn't be able to go through that again and keep his mind intact. He'd thought about it a few times since that night, but the thoughts had been fleeting and something he did not wish to ever seriously entertain. Yes, he’d jumped off that building but that had been a spur of the moment sort of thing. Now, as he found himself trapped in a room with the monster of his nightmares who he knew could not be trusted, he wanted nothing more than to avoid what he knew was coming at any cost.

"Try to put that on," Shizuo suggested before he turned around and went to stand in the opposite corner, as far away from Izaya as he could possibly stand since he could feel a heat starting to build up in his nether region and he was horrified by the way his body was reacting. No way, he thought in disbelief as he rested his forehead against the wall, gently banging on it in frustration while the accursed thing in his pants kept hardening.

Meanwhile, Izaya kept eyeing Shizuo as he put the shirt on, trying to decide if he would seriously prefer to die over getting forced by Shizuo again. Luckily, the shirt was long enough to cover his ass but he still felt exposed and vulnerable, which made him consider tying it around his waist, but that too was just as bad so in the end he chose to leave it as it was. "You're going to do it," he said in a hollow voice.

"I won't, I promise," Shizuo said, sounding frustrated.

"You won't be able to just stand there and watch while Adabashi hurts Kasuka."

Shizuo ran a hand over his face, wishing that he had some water to pour over himself so that his body would cool down a bit. "I made you a promise, so stop talking about it and try to come up with a way to escape. You're the smarter one here," Shizuo growled and then bit his lip until he tasted blood. He couldn't understand why it was happening since he hadn't at any point during the past few minutes been so disgusting as to think that he wanted to fuck Izaya.

"You also promised to never hurt me again," Izaya reminded him, "and then you did." He was grateful that his voice wasn’t shaking, but he assumed that was because Shizuo was not angry at him. The whole thing however proved that indeed he was okay with being around Shizuo as long as the beast’s anger was not directed at him.

"That was different," Shizuo hissed and had to take a deep breath when the material of his pants rubbed just the right way. "I won't do anything, so stop talking about it, okay? Just talk about something else; anything," he pleaded.

"What's wrong with you?" Izaya inquired, his eye narrowing in suspicion when he noticed that Shizuo was acting strangely.

"N-Nothing," Shizuo stuttered, for a second thinking that Izaya had somehow found out. "I... I'm just... I'm thinking."

"I find that very hard to believe," Izaya snorted since the beast was not known for doing much thinking in general. He was just about to tell Shizuo to stop wasting time and to look around the room to see if there was any way to escape when the sounds of approaching footsteps could be heard. The strange thing however was that it also sounded like someone was dragging chains after them.

"I have a surprise for you, Heiwajima," Adabashi said as he stood in front of the door, holding an extremely weak-looking Kasuka by the arm. When Shizuo didn't answer, he continued. "I thought you wanted to see your brother, but if you don't want to then―"

Once he realized what Adabashi was saying, Shizuo rushed to the door, momentarily forgetting that he had a tent in his pants. "Kasuka!" he shouted the name and stretched a hand through the opening, hoping to touch him.

Adabashi pulled Kasuka away from the door, chuckling.

Meanwhile, Izaya was so terrified at the sight that he couldn't even breathe anymore, but he still found the strength to push himself to his feet and make his way to the opposite side of the room, as far away from Shizuo as possible.

"Please don't hurt him anymore," Shizuo begged and that's when Kasuka's legs gave out from under him and he started crying.

"Ah, don't worry about him, he's fine," Adabashi assured him. "He just got emotional over hearing his nii-san's voice. This whole time, Kasuka here thought that you were still in a coma."

Shizuo's eyes filled with tears as well and his heart nearly turned to dust at the sight of his usually emotionless brother sobbing his heart out.

"Now here's what's going to happen. You're going to turn around and fuck Orihara until he cries like a little bitch. The pill I put in the bottle of water Slon gave you should've had an effect by now."

Shizuo's eyes widened and somehow he felt that he could breathe a little easier knowing that the boner he remembered having in his pants was not his fault. That's also when he recalled that Izaya was there as well and he turned around, a wave of guilt washing over him when he saw that the flea was looking at him as though he would jump him at any moment. "I can't do it," he said brokenly. "I can’t."

"Alright, then you can stay there and think about it while I go have some more fun with your brother," Adabashi said in a cheerful voice as he started dragging a sobbing Kasuka down the hallway.

"No! Don't! Please! I'll do anything, just not what you want me to do! Please!" Shizuo kept shouting in despair while tears streamed down his face. A few minutes later the screaming started echoing throughout the building and Shizuo collapsed on the ground, digging his nails into the skin above what remained of his broken heart.

Izaya could do nothing but wait and hope against hope that Shizuo would not give into Adabashi's demands, but he could tell that the beast was one step away from breaking, especially since he kept flinching each time Kasuka screamed. Surprisingly enough, it was Izaya who covered his ears first, the horror of the reality he was stuck in mixing with the nightmare that was that night.

Neither of them spoke, each in his own hell while Adabashi seemed to be the enjoying himself if the laughter they could hear was any indication. They didn't know how much time they just sat there trying to block out the sounds, but the screams eventually stopped and Adabashi showed up again, carrying an even bloodier Kasuka after him.

Shizuo slowly stood up and then nearly collapsed down on his knees when he saw the new cuts Adabashi had carved into Kasuka's already broken body. "Please stop," he begged, barely finding his voice.

"You know, I've been thinking," Adabashi started, sounding excited, "Kasuka here was always so emotionless, so why not give him a smile that he wouldn't be able to hide?"

To Shizuo's horror, Adabashi pushed the bloody knife into Kasuka's mouth and moved it to the side until the sharp edge was resting against the inner cheek. "Okay, okay, I'll do it! Just stop."

All of Izaya's hopes got crushed in that moment and he couldn't help but start hyperventilating now that he knew for certain what would happen next.

Adabashi smiled. "See? I told you that it was only a matter of time."

"Yeah, I see that now. I have two conditions though," Shizuo said through gritted teeth.

Adabashi's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "You're in no position to make any demands."

"All I ask is that you take my brother away from here and that you deactivate that device," Shizuo requested. "You said it yourself, I can't get out of here, so there's nothing I can do besides follow your order."

"Fine," Adabashi agreed. He’d changed the settings a while ago and put the collar to blow up when he pressed the button instead of when letting it go, something he couldn’t have afforded to do before taking Slon out. "I'll be right back.”

Before Izaya could even scream, Shizuo was upon him, pinning him to the wall and covering his mouth with a strong hand. Two hundred and forty-eight days, Izaya thought as he felt himself slipping into madness and despair. That was the number of days he'd managed to survive without losing his mind after that fateful night. He knew because he'd been counting them this whole time. How could he not? And once again, there he was, at the beast's mercy. He wanted to beg Shizuo to just kill him instead, but the hand covering his mouth didn't allow him to do so.

"Listen," Shizuo started, almost sounding calm since he finally understood what he needed to do. "We don't have much time. I'm going to let you go now, so don't scream and just listen to me, okay? Nothing will happen to you. I'd rather die than put you through that again. Nod if you understand."

Izaya nodded, struggling to hear what Shizuo was saying when his own heart was beating so loudly and it felt as though he was one step away from passing out. The hand covering his mouth was pulled back and Izaya nearly collapsed on the floor when Shizuo released him, his legs trembling so badly that he had to grab the beast’s arm just to remain standing.

"There is no way for all of us to walk out of here alive, but there is a chance that you and Kasuka might. Once Adabashi comes back and gets close to the door, I'll run into it. The two of us will die, but there's a chance that you might survive if you stay here in the corner. If you survive, I trust you to get Kasuka out of here. Do you understand?" When Izaya didn't react, Shizuo asked again. "I trust you to save the person I love the most in this world. Can you do it?"

Izaya slowly nodded, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Shizuo would choose death over attacking him again.

The sounds of approaching footsteps echoed throughout the hallway, indicating that Adabashi was on his way back.

Shizuo cupped Izaya's cheek as he smiled sadly. "Never forgive me," he said before he released him and walked up to the door.

Izaya lowered himself in the corner and covered his head with his arms, Shizuo's words ringing loudly in his head. Stupid beast, this is not how I wanted you to die. Shizuo waved him good bye without turning around to look at him and that's when Izaya felt his heart break even more for some reason.

Shizuo was just about to punch through the door when Adabashi spoke, sounding a bit out of breath. "Looks like your friends are here, so I'll need you two to come with me as hostages."

Izaya raised his head and stared at the door in shock while Shizuo stepped back, shivers running down his spine when he realized just how close he'd been to blowing himself up. A familiar voice echoed down the hallway a few moments later and Shizuo froze, wondering what she was doing there.

"The device has been deactivated. You have nowhere to run," Ruri said in her usual emotionless tone.

"No! Run! He's got a gun!" Shizuo shouted and hoped that she wouldn't get killed.

Izaya, who until then had remained silent, burst into sadistic laughter as he recalled his run in with Hollywood. "Good bye, Adabashi. I hope you go to Hell."

To both their surprises, Adabashi threw away the gun and started running away, Ruri chasing after him with Celty's scythe in her hands. That's when Shizuo realized that Celty was there as well. He cursed under his breath, wishing that Adabashi had at least opened the door before running away. Another set of approaching footsteps could be heard and both Shizuo and Izaya shouted, "We're in here," at the same time, hoping to get Celty's attention.

"Celty-san is headed for the hospital with Hanejima Yuuhei," Vorona said as she approached the door.

Shinra came running after her, shouting Izaya's name from the top of his lungs.

"I'm here!" Izaya responded as he wiped the tears from his eye, not wanting to further upset Shinra.

"I will deactivate the devices now," Vorona announced.

Shinra remained behind her, heart pounding inside his chest not only because of what had occurred with Celty, but also because he was scared of what he might find once the door opened.

"Shizuo," he started in a dangerous tone, "If you hurt Izaya, I swear I'm going to―"

"I'm fine," Izaya assured him as he slowly limped in the direction of the door while using the wall for support. "Shizu-chan didn't hurt me."

Vorona opened the door a few minutes later and Shizuo dashed past her, thanking her as he ran in the direction in which Adabashi and Ruri had disappeared.

Shinra felt his eyes fill with tears when the door opened and he saw the state Izaya was in. "Who did this to you?" he asked in a trembling voice as he walked in, took off his lab coat and then placed it over Izaya's shoulders. Izaya leaned into him and Shinra took him in his arms, wondering what was wrong with Izaya's eye but too afraid to ask. "You're going to be okay," he promised.

Now that he knew he was safe, Izaya finally allowed himself to slip into unconsciousness.

***

Ruri was not in a hurry to kill Adabashi. She wanted to take her time snuffing the life out of him so that she could enjoy every little scream leaving his filthy mouth. She hurt because Kasuka was hurting and that wasn't something she could ever forgive. Handing Adabashi over to the police was not even an option.

She used the scythe to incapacitate him by slashing him across his legs and then stood there trying to decide how to make him scream as Adabashi struggled to crawl away.

"He doesn't deserve you," Adabashi said, heart beating wildly inside his chest at the thought of getting killed by the serial killer Hollywood. He couldn't understand what had gone wrong since he'd been sure that he had everything under control. On second thought, he realized that it had to have been Slon and it made him regret not killing the Russian assassin sooner. "Give me a chance and you'll see how much better than him I am."

"Shut up!" Ruri shouted, her emotionless mask momentarily slipping. She walked up to him, used the scythe to cut through both his arms so that he couldn't hit her back and then bent down and punched him hard in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. "In the past, I felt disgust for my actions, but not now. This is not revenge, this is justice," she said as she flicked open a switchblade she'd found inside the building, the dried blood most likely belonging to her beloved Yuuhei. She pushed the blade into his chest and started cutting, doing her best to make a straight line while Adabashi screamed and struggled, scared out of mind.

"P-Please!" Adabashi begged when he felt her hand dig into his chest.

"You did not stop hurting Yuuhei, so why should I?" she reminded him as she grabbed one of his ribs and started pulling on it with all the strength she could muster.

A few moments later the rib snapped and Adabashi shrieked, his eyes wide as he stared at the broken bone in Ruri's hand.

It was then when Shizuo showed up, his loud gasp going unnoticed beneath all the screaming. The contrast between the shy and sweet Ruri he knew and the cold, ruthless one before him was too uncanny and he found himself leaning against the wall, trying to understand what he was seeing.

"H-Help m-me!" Adabashi begged once he noticed the new arrival, the horror of what Hollywood was doing to him too much for his mind to remain intact. He couldn't even think anymore, but he could still beg for help, no matter who they were.

"Shizuo-san," Ruri addressed her future brother-in-law as she grabbed another rib and started pulling on it while she used her other hand to cover Adabashi's mouth.

"R-Ruri-san," he uttered weakly as he fought to push down the nausea threatening to overwhelm him. "I... I'll kill him. Just step back."

"He's mine," she said and pulled out another rib, the sound of bones breaking making Shizuo gag.

He'd broken a lot of bones in his life, but seeing someone's chest cut open and ribs being pulled out one by one was too much even for him.

"Please leave," Ruri requested.

"I..."

"Leave!"

Their eyes met and for a few seconds they just stared at each other until Shizuo looked away, finally understanding that Ruri would not stop no matter what he said or did. He gave her a nod and then started walking away, his thirst for blood quenched even if he was not the one killing the monster who had hurt his brother. Somehow, at that moment, nothing else seemed to matter besides the fact that Kasuka was finally safe.

Notes:

LZonnaArt made a Chapter 93 - Unveiled Hunter: Reaction FanArt and I can't not laugh because this is just so perfect. xD

Once again, thank you so much! ♥

Chapter 95: One More Kiss

The sun was high in the sky when Izaya started stirring in his bed, a sigh slipping past his lips when he opened his eye and then had to close it again because of how much light was spilling into his room.

Wait...

That's when the memories of the past few days rushed back to him like a torrent and he started hyperventilating as he slowly raised a trembling hand to his face, the nausea intensifying when his fingertips touched what he assumed was a medical eyepatch. His good eye darted around the room and he felt the panic surge because his brain was not getting as much information on his surroundings with only one eye. It made Izaya feel vulnerable, especially since it meant that anyone would be able to sneak up on him from the left side. Nonetheless, he tried to calm down, but it was hard to do so when his heart wouldn't stop hammering inside his chest. What if his eye was damaged and disgusting and he'd have to wear an eyepatch for the rest of his life?

At least you still have an eye, he reminded himself. He could feel the eye moving and it hurt a bit but nothing like the stabbing pain from before, which was a relief when compared to the thought of completely losing his eye. Still, the whole thing had been quite traumatizing and it took him a good five minutes to calm down enough to be able to breathe normally again. He'd been through hell but now he was safe and that was the only thing that mattered.

Slowly, he pushed himself off his bed and started limping towards the door, using the walls for support since the room was spinning around him and he was worried that he might end up falling because of it and because the gunshot wound in his leg hurt quite a bit.

Shinra, who heard the door open, shut the TV off and rushed up the stairs, worried that Izaya might do something stupid, like falling down and breaking his neck. "You should be in bed," he said in a soft voice as he offered his arm for support.

Instead of taking it, Izaya took him by surprise by wrapping his arms around Shinra's waist and burying his head into his friend's chest. "Thank you," he uttered in a trembling voice as tears started to gather in his good eye. "Thank you for coming."

Shinra, who didn't return the hug right away because of how stunned he was, smiled and wrapped his arms around his friend's trembling form. He still didn't know what exactly had transpired since Shizuo refused to talk about it, saying that if he wanted to know, he should ask Izaya, which led to three torturous days of him imagining all sorts of messed up scenarios to explain why Izaya had been stripped of his clothes and why he was wearing Shizuo's shirt. Izaya had stated that Shizuo hadn't hurt him, but Shinra couldn't be certain that was the truth. For all he knew, Izaya might have lied because Vorona was there and because he wanted to hide what had happened.

His arms tightened around Izaya's skinny body, knowing that his friend needed the comfort after the nightmare he'd been put through. "Let's get you back to bed," he said softly after a few minutes of just holding Izaya like that.

"I don't want to," Izaya uttered, hoping that Shinra wouldn't force him to go back to bed since he didn't want to be alone at that moment. "Let's go downstairs," he suggested and then a small sigh of relief slipped past his dry lips when Shinra agreed to it. It wasn't easy and he ended up hissing in pain more than once, but at least he would be downstairs with Shinra and that was all the reason he needed to push past the pain until they finally reached the couch and he pretty much collapsed on it. "Water," he said as he struggled to catch his breath.

Shinra rushed to the kitchen and brought a bottle of water, thinking that a glass might not be enough to quench the man's thirst. He passed it to Izaya who took it with a trembling hand and then went up the stairs from where he took a pillow and a blanket before coming back downstairs. "Lie down," he ordered in his doctor-voice after Izaya drank the water, his tone leaving no room for argument. He expected Izaya to fight him on this, but the man simply nodded and did as he was told, the whole thing worrying Shinra even more because it wasn't in Izaya's nature to act so obedient.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he covered the lithe form with the blanket he'd brought and then sat down on the other couch so that he could properly see Izaya's face as they had the discussion he'd been waiting to have since the moment the door to that room opened and he saw his friend wearing the blond's shirt. "Did Shizuo do anything to you?"

Even though he'd been trying to mentally prepare himself for the past few minutes to answer Shinra's questions, Izaya still found it hard to even open his mouth let alone talk about what had transpired in that old abandoned building since the events were too fresh in his mind and because the whole thing had been terrifying. If he were to be honest with himself, he still couldn't believe that he'd managed to get out of it alive. "You should already know the answer to that question," Izaya said as he pulled the blanket closer to his face.

Shinra nodded, but a thorough investigation wasn't enough to reveal the whole story. There were many other things that Shizuo could've done that didn't involve penetration. "I know he didn't force you, but did he touch you?"

It wasn't cold inside the apartment, but Izaya still shuddered at the mere thought of it. "He... he didn't," he answered after a long silence. "Adabashi wanted him to but Shizu-chan refused to do it even after Adabashi started hurting Kasuka as punishment for Shizu-chan disobeying the order." Izaya could feel Shinra's intense gaze, as though the man was trying to figure out if he was lying or telling the truth, and while it made him uncomfortable, he had to admit that he was grateful that Shinra worried about him. "He didn't take off my clothes," he then added and hoped that Shinra would finally stop looking at him like that. "All he did was offer his shirt so that I wouldn't have to remain naked in front of him."

Neither of them broke the stare for a long time, but finally, after what felt like forever, Shinra looked away, sighing in relief. "I'm sorry," he apologized as he ran a hand over his face. "It's just that Shizuo wouldn't tell me anything and I've been worried this whole time thinking that he'd done something and that the reason he refused to talk about it was because he was hiding something."

"How long was I out?" Izaya asked, frowning a little.

"Three days," Shinra answered and switched to a more comfortable position now that he was no longer tense with worry over what Shizuo might've done to the frail creature before him. Izaya was by no means weak, but the man's heart was a fragile thing and Shinra doubted that it could take much more before finally crumbling to dust. It had taken a lot of time and effort for Izaya to recover even a bit from the sexual assault and the last thing the man needed was to be put through the same thing again. Shinra had no doubts that if it were to happen again, it would completely destroy Izaya.

"I don't want you to see him anymore," he then added when it looked like Izaya was musing over what might've happened while he was unconscious. One brown-red eye snapped up at him and Shinra continued, knowing that he'd gotten Izaya's attention. "If you see him walking down the street, go in the opposite direction. If you accidentally run into him, don't even talk to him. Just walk away."

Izaya knew that he had to say something, but the truth was that he'd been stunned into silence by Shinra's words.

"You two are like fire and gasoline. You feed on each other's hatred and anger and cause destruction around you. Worst of all, you're also destroying each other in the process."

"You don't need to worry," Izaya finally said once he found his voice. "Nothing ha―"

"Just because nothing happened, it doesn't mean that something might not have eventually happened. What if Shizuo decided that he would much rather hurt you than see his brother suffer? What if we were too late? What if we never showed up?"

Izaya opened his mouth and then closed it, Shinra's words bringing back the terror and hopelessness he'd experienced when he'd thought that it was only a matter of time before Shizuo finally caved and gave in to Adabashi's demands. Before he even knew what was happening he was hit by a flashback of a beast thrusting into him and he let out a small whimper as the too vivid memory sent chills down his spine.

At first, Shinra had no idea what was happening, but he soon became aware of his mistake when a pathetic sound reached his ears and he realized that Izaya was no longer in the present but stuck in the past. He quickly moved to Izaya's side and brought him into his arms, whispering words of comfort into his ear while running his hand up and down the man's spine. "You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you anymore. I'll make sure of it." Another muffled whimper reached his ears and his hand stilled for only a moment as he was overcome by rage before he forced it to move again. "I'll kill anyone who hurts you," he promised, and the scary thing was that he meant every word of it. Unlike Izaya, he didn't care about humans and as such he would have no problem killing them. And since he was a doctor, he knew of several ways to dispose of a body without leaving behind any evidence that a crime had even been committed.

As for Shizuo, the man might not have hurt Izaya this time, but Shinra didn't trust him since he knew how terrible the brute was at keeping his anger in check. It wasn't just that. Izaya might have been satisfied with psychologically torturing Shizuo, but Shinra didn't think that the emotional pain inflicted on the blond would ever compare to the horror that Izaya had experienced while being raped. Yes, Shizuo might not have touched Izaya in that room, but it was still pretty obvious that the whole thing had deeply affected his friend and that it might take some time before Izaya could even find the strength to pretend that he was okay.

Meanwhile, Izaya was too busy fighting the memories overflowing into his mind to worry about how pathetic he might look in Shinra's eyes. The whole thing had dug up things he'd buried deep into the recesses of his mind and it took everything in his power to not get completely consumed by them. He could almost smell the rain and feel the coldness on his skin, as well as the rough but warm hand wrapped around his nape, but worst of all he could recall how much it had hurt to have the beast move between his legs while all he could do was pray that it would soon be over.

"You're safe," Shinra reminded him when he felt the man shudder in his arms. "I'll watch over you, so go to sleep."

Izaya nodded weakly and clung to the anchor that was Shinra with everything he had while he fought the horror of what had occurred two hundred and fifty-one days in the past and what could've happened once again no more than three days earlier. He didn't know for how long he stayed like that in Shinra's arms, but he eventually succumbed to the exhaustion he could no longer fight and he ended up falling asleep. If he knew the nightmare he'd find himself in, he would've fought harder to stay awake.

He was back in that room, trembling like a leaf while Shizuo kept begging Adabashi to stop hurting Kasuka. It went on for a few minutes, until Adabashi hit the final nail in the coffin that would be his fate when he threatened to give Kasuka a Glasgow smile. That's when Shizuo's resolution to not hurt him shattered to pieces and the beast marched up to him, begging for forgiveness while he turned him around, pinned him to the wall and then proceeded to unbuckle his belt. Izaya forwent his pride and started begging, his words quickly turning into screams when he felt the beast's disgusting shaft touch his backside and he was speared through much like the first time.

The pain was just as horrible as he remembered and he couldn't stop begging the beast to stop or to at least kill him, his much louder voice drowning Shizuo's apologies as the monster kept thrusting into him. Izaya could feel his own mind starting to shatter, each new painful thrust chipping away at the little bit of sanity he had left. Through the haze of pain, he knew that the monster making him bleed was breaking too, the hot tears hitting his shoulders proof that unlike the previous time, Shizuo was not enjoying it.

"I'm so sorry, Izaya! I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"

He had never wanted to die more than he did at that moment, Shizuo's apologies to him no consolation for the absolute hell he was being put through.

"Izaya! Izaya!" the beast kept saying and soon the tone changed and his name was being spoken in Shinra's voice.

"Izaya!"

That's when he finally woke up and pushed Shinra away on instinct, a scream dying on his lips when he realized that he was not in that room but safe in his own apartment.

"Izaya," Shinra repeated the name again in a soft voice as he raised his hands, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "You're safe. You were having a nightmare."

"W-Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" Izaya asked in a trembling voice as he pulled the blanket over his body and then lowered his head in shame.

"I tried to, but you weren't waking up." It didn't take a genius to figure out what Izaya was dreaming about, and it broke Shinra's heart to even think that Izaya had been forced to experience such a thing again even if it had only been a nightmare. "How often do you have this dream?" he couldn't help but ask as he sat down on the other couch, knowing that Izaya needed space. "Nightmare," he then corrected himself.

Not wanting to upset Shinra even further, he decided to change the subject even though he dreaded the answer to his next question. "How is... how is my eye?"

Shinra's eyes narrowed briefly and then relaxed again as he sighed tiredly since he really couldn't blame Izaya for not wanting to talk about it. "The cornea was destroyed beyond repair and the iris was damaged too."

As the words reached his ears, Izaya started breathing faster.

"The retina was not destroyed though, nor was the optic nerve," Shinra then added quickly when he saw Izaya's panic-stricken expression. "Slon didn't push the blade in too deeply. I think that he didn't want to accidentally kill you." The only reason he even knew who had stabbed Izaya in the eye was because it was the only thing Shizuo had bothered to tell him.

"So not only am I not going to see with my left eye anymore, but I'm going to look like a freak too," Izaya concluded bitterly.

"Well... not exactly," Shinra corrected him, sounding a bit nervous. "You see, the doctors at the hospital said that there wasn't anything they could besides replacing the cornea and hoping for the best, but since I couldn't accept it, I called my father and asked him if he knew anyone who could help."

Izaya's good eye widened in shock and he wanted to believe that for once the universe would work in his favor, but he was too afraid to cling to such a fleeting hope.

"I mean, I'm not saying that you'll be able to see for sure, or at all for that matter, but at least there's a chance since they implanted an artificial iris that I can't even begin to understand how it works and they also replaced your cornea."

Finally, Izaya let out the breath he hadn't even known he was holding and raised a hand to his damaged eye. There was hope and that was more than he could ever ask for. Still, he knew there had to be more to it since Shingen never did anything if it didn't benefit him in some way. "What deal did you make with that devil?" Shinra's nervous expression suddenly turned into one of agony and that's when Izaya knew for certain that whatever the deal had been, it was something that hurt his friend in some way.

"I just know that the only reason my beloved Celty let my father's wife and the men who operated on your eye cut into her is because she plans to leave me," Shinra said in a trembling voice as he raised his hands and covered his face in order to hide the tears he could feel beginning to gather in his eyes.

"Why would she leave you?" Izaya asked, shocked to hear that the Dullahan would do anything to help him. Instead of getting an answer, his eye met Shinra's and that's when he knew that the doctor was mad at him for some reason.

"You should've kept her head safe," Shinra answered, the anger that he couldn't hide seeping into his voice.

That's when Izaya knew what Shinra's words meant. To his surprise, he was less upset about it than he thought he'd be. After everything he'd been through, he'd come to realize that there was value in death. He still wanted to live forever, but that didn't change the fact that in certain situations, he might choose death over being alive. In a way, it was a relief to have that option. Living forever without the possibility of dying was beginning to sound just as scary as not existing anymore. "I couldn't help it," Izaya finally said when he realized that Shinra was waiting for him to explain how he'd lost Celty's head. "Adabashi made it look like I had taken Kasuka and Shizu-chan, thinking he could find something that would lead him to his brother, turned my apartment upside down."

Shinra's already angry expression turned even angrier. "Why didn't you tell me about this before? Did he hurt you?"

Izaya shook his head, not wanting to throw any more gasoline into the fire that was Shinra's anger. "If he hurt me, you would've been the first one to know," he lied as he forced a small smile on his face.

Abruptly, Shinra stood up. "Will you be fine by yourself for a few hours? I need to talk to Celty."

Izaya nodded even though the last thing he wanted was to be alone at that moment. "I'll be fine. You go do what you must do."

"Thanks," Shinra said before he turned around and started heading for the door. Once there he stopped, his hand resting on the handle. "You know that I don't care about humans general, but you're different. I'm glad our paths have crossed in this life," he said and walked out the door, leaving a stunned and slightly worried Izaya behind.

***

Three days passed since Kasuka had been hospitalized and Celty no longer knew what to do in order to get Shizuo to eat something. The man had refused everything she'd brought and the one time she'd pretty much forced him to eat, he ended up rushing to the bathroom and emptying the contents of his stomach within minutes after taking his first bite. He understood that he was worried about his brother, but the whole thing was getting ridiculous, especially since the man barely drank any water on top of not eating. "You're going to kill yourself at this rate," she said, her voice full of worry for her friend. Shizuo had done a lot of mistakes over the years, his biggest one being what he'd done to Izaya, but Celty could no longer be angry at him after seeing him so broken.

"Maybe I deserve to die," Shizuo replied tiredly as he let his head fall into his hands. Kasuka had woken up the previous day, but instead of being a moment of relief, it turned into a horror show when his brother had a full blown panic attack and ended up opening many of his stitches while fighting off the nurse trying to calm him down. They had to sedate him and then Sakamoto and the only other doctor he trusted to know who the patient really was decided to keep him sedated until his worst injuries healed, especially the arm they didn't even know if their patient would be able to use again. As if Adabashi breaking his arm and then leaving it untreated for weeks wasn't enough, the sadist had also broken all of Kasuka's fingers more than once, to the point that all of them needed surgery in order to set the bones back into place. The doctors hoped that with therapy, he'd be able to regain use of at least some of them. Then there were the many scars his brother would have no choice but to live with, the once flawless skin marred by the proof of Adabashi's sadism and hatred. Shizuo's only consolation was that the psycho hadn't cut Kasuka's face, something that would've completely destroyed his brother.

As if seeing Kasuka like that wasn’t bad enough, he'd also had to witness his parents breaking down at the sight of their son lying in a hospital bed. They were both obviously grateful that Kasuka had been returned to them, but the state in which they had found their baby was enough to crush them. "None of this would've happened if I hadn't... If I..."

"You are not responsible for other people's actions," Celty said and then turned her head to the side when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. "Shinra," she gasped, surprised that she hadn't heard him approach.

"We need to talk," Shinra said in a serious tone.

Celty nodded and stood up, knowing that they could no longer postpone the discussion she knew would follow. Still, she wished she could. "This isn't the time nor place."

"I disagree," Shinra said as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button leading to the top floor. Once there, he stepped out and took the stairs leading to the roof, knowing that the next few minutes would decide his fate. The door was closed, but Celty opened it and they both stepped out on to the roof. "Lock the door," he then requested, not wanting to be bothered by anyone.

Celty did as she was told, using the key she had made out of her shadows to lock the door. She then turned to Shinra, her nervousness increasing as Shinra's intense gaze fell upon her and then stayed there. She felt like prey about to get devoured by a predator, but somehow that didn't scare her. If anything, it excited her to know that Shinra was starving for her. Still, she found herself backing away until she hit the wall, her resolution to leave him wavering now that she was in his presence.

"I love you," was the only thing Shinra said before he trapped Celty between the wall and his body and captured her lips in a heated kiss. He felt her trying to push him away with her much smaller hands, but it became obvious that she didn't really want that when those same hands moved to his arms and she grabbed on to him as though he was her lifeline. Celty returned the kiss, her body just as hungry for him as he was for her. Shinra had been certain that she would punch him, which would've led to the next part of his plan, but since she was so willing and desperate for him, he couldn't help but succumb to the desire consuming him from within. He felt himself harden in his pants and he didn't fight it, not when his beloved appeared to be melting within his embrace as her ran his hands all over her body, the cold black shadows retreating and leaving behind soft porcelain skin.

To his surprise, Celty's hands traveled lower and he couldn't help but grow even harder as she desperately fumbled with his buckle, the thought that she wanted him that much enough to make him dizzy. He kept one arm around her waist and used the other to help her as he continued to kiss her, a small sigh slipping past his lips when they finally managed to unbuckle his belt and his painfully hard shaft was finally freed. Celty's hands moved to his shoulders and he grabbed her waist and raised her up so that she could wrap her legs around him.

His eyes opened and searched for her blue ones in order to get permission, but she kept them closed, most likely too embarrassed by the whole thing to look at him. He broke the kiss, his lips planting butterfly kisses as they traveled across her jaw until they reached her ear. "Are you ready?" Celty froze in his arms and Shinra feared that she might reject him after all, but he felt her nod slowly and that was all the permission he needed to continue. "I love you," he said, pouring all the love he felt for her in those three words, before he guided his painfully hard manhood to her entrance.

A half cry, half moan escaped her flushed lips and he captured her mouth again, kissing her senseless as he slowly entered her since Celty was not human and he wasn't one hundred percent sure how that part of her worked. It was his turn to moan once he was fully inside her, the heavenly feeling of finally being one with the person he loved more than life itself enough to drive him crazy. He pulled out slowly and then thrust back in, Celty's gasp telling him that she hadn't been prepared for the rush of pleasure flaring in her nether region. He repeated the action again, drinking in her little moans as he increased the speed, his burning need pushing him to take her a bit rougher than he had intended. Fortunately, she seemed to enjoy it, her nails leaving bloody trails in their wake as her moans increased in both volume and frequency.

After so many years of yearning for her, Celty was finally in his arms and Shinra knew what pure bliss felt like. He greedily inhaled her heavenly scent and buried his head in the crook of her neck, softly biting her skin and enjoying the tune her moans were creating. He wanted to prolong this sweet agony for as long as he could, but he knew that he wouldn't last for much longer. "I'm going to... I need to..." he whined in her ear, deciding that it was best to pull out since he didn't know if she'd be okay with him coming inside her.

Celty somehow managed to understand through the haze of pleasure what he was trying to say, but instead of letting him go, she held on to him tighter and moved her hips to meet his thrusts. She wanted this man who had loved her for so many years to give her his everything, not willing to be apart from him for even a second until they were both done and they would have to face the harsh reality that awaited them. Shinra's thrusts turned erratic and she could sense his desperation, her own peak fast approaching until the heat building up finally reached a critical point and then exploded in wave after wave of pure bliss that made her forget everything for a few long seconds.

Celty's sweet voice and wonderful tightness sent Shinra over the edge and he came as well, spilling himself inside her as he continued to thrust for a while longer, riding the last waves of his orgasm until his knees finally gave out from under him and he collapsed, dragging Celty down with him. A small whine left his lips when he slipped out of her, the cold air hitting his softening shaft.

A few minutes passed as they both struggled to catch their breaths, neither of them pulling away even though they knew that they couldn't remain like that forever. Finally, it was Shinra who found the strength to stand up and tuck himself inside his pants, his eyes locked on Celty's still naked form. God, she was so beautiful and perfect and he never wanted to be away from her again. If they could spend every second of the rest of his life together, he would be the happiest man to have ever existed.

But he knew that such a thing wasn't going to happen if he allowed Celty to leave. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that nothing less than betting his life on it would deter her from walking away. "Celty," he called her name as he started walking towards the edge, "I can't let you leave."

Sensing that Shinra might do something stupid, she quickly stood up on weak knees, embarrassment flaring up and making her lower her head and cover her face to hide it when she sensed Shinra's seed trickling out of her and running down her legs. She immediately used her shadows to cover herself and then took a deep breath before she raised her head, her previous worrying turning into full blown panic when she saw him standing at the edge of the building with his arms spread. "W-What are you doing?" she stuttered, too afraid to even take a step forward so as to not make him fall by accident.

"I know you plan to leave me, but I can't accept that," Shinra said, his voice sounding surprisingly cheerful for someone who was willing to die if it meant losing the love of his life.

She wanted to lie and say that she wouldn't leave, but she couldn't do that to him, knowing that even if she stopped him now, he would do it again if she left him. Perhaps it was time to tell him how she really felt. "I can't remain here. I've twisted the lives of too many humans already." This time, she took a small step forward, her heart ready to burst out of her chest with fear. "I've twisted yours."

"You are not responsible for other people's actions," Shinra reminded her, reciting the same words she had told Shizuo.

"But I am!" she shouted, raising her tone in frustration.

"No, you're not. It was Izaya's decision to acquire your head and mine to not tell you where it was," Shinra revealed, deciding that it was best to tell her the truth in order to make her understand just how far he was willing to go to keep her by his side.

She'd found out that Shizuo had given Vorona her head, but she had no idea how he had acquired it until that very moment. "Why?" she asked, feeling betrayed.

"I knew that you would leave me once you got your head back; I couldn't allow that," he answered, his lips set into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I don't mind being a villain if that's what it takes to keep you by my side."

Even though she felt betrayed, Celty understood why Shinra had kept such a thing from her. The man was madly in love with her and had been for a very long time. Now that she too had experienced love, she couldn't find it within herself to be mad at him, especially not after the connection they had shared earlier. "Get away from the edge and we'll talk about it," she offered.

"I don't think you understand, Celty," Shinra said, still pretending to smile. "If you leave, then I have no reason to continue living. You are my everything."

"You don't really mean what you're saying right now. Life is precious and you shouldn't throw it away for just anyone. Why can't you accept that I am not human and that I do not belong here?"

"You're not just anyone," Shinra corrected her. "You're the one."

"Please," she begged. "I can't let you die."

"Then don't. All I ask is that you stay with me until I die. It won't even be that long for you," Shinra pleaded. "Please stay with me. I love you so much that I can barely breathe whenever I think that you're going to disappear and that I'll never see you again."

"I... I can't... I have a duty―" Celty started, but Shinra cut her off.

"If you choose to stay with me, then catch me, but if you are still decided to leave, then let me die," he said and allowed himself to fall backwards, hoping to get the chance to give her at least one more kiss.

Celty was frozen on the spot for only a second, torn between her duty and the love she felt for Shinra. Then she moved, running towards the edge and jumping after the man she loved with everything she had, now certain that the love she felt for him was greater than the responsibility she felt as a Dullahan. She couldn't let him die. She wouldn't. He shadows burst out of her and she anchored them to the building before sending a few more after Shinra, barely catching him just as he was about to hit the pavement. "You idiot!" she shouted, her voice breaking as she pulled him up. "You should cherish your life more."

Shinra smiled, knowing that Celty had made up her mind. "I cherish you more," he said and waited until Celty pulled them both up and on to the roof again before he grabbed her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. "I'll make you happy, I promise." He knew that he was being selfish, but that's just who he was. After all, he didn't mind becoming a villain if that was the only way to get the woman he loved.

Notes:

Honestly, I don't even care how Celty's body really works. All I want is for these two to be happy. xD

Chapter 96: Entwined in Misery

After Shinra's departure, Izaya called Yuigadokusonmaru and held him in his arms, desperate for the warmth that only another living being could provide. He missed Shinra's comforting embrace and he wanted him to come back soon, but he knew that his friend needed time to convince Celty to stay and he wasn’t going to be the one to jeopardize Shinra's happiness just because he felt broken and lonely. He knew, however, that he was not doing well and that he needed help, which was why he ended up calling Shizuka and asking her if she could come to his apartment. The woman agreed, her kind tone reminding Izaya just how lucky he was to have picked her as his therapist. He was very much aware that it'd be awkward and uncomfortable for him now that Shizuka knew what had really happened to him, but he had no regrets about telling her since it was a necessary step he had taken on his journey to healing.

He also left Shinra a message saying that he would be busy talking to someone about what happened and asking him to not come back until the next morning. Once he took care of that, he pushed himself to his feet, took a couple of painkillers Shinra had left on the coffee table, grabbed the blanket and pillow and then limped up to his room, intending to make himself look as presentable as he could before she arrived. Not only was his hair a mess, but he also needed to change and wash his face. He would've loved to take a shower too, but he didn't have the time or the energy to remain standing for too long, nor could he risk getting water on his gunshot wound. The painkillers were helping a bit, but he still ended up hissing in pain more than once as he undressed and then put on a pair of black pants, socks and a shirt. Once done he went downstairs and waited for Shizuka while trying to catch his breath. He didn't have to wait for long though since not even half an hour later she was knocking on the door, a small sigh slipping past his lips before he gathered his strength and stood up, a few sounds of pain following as he went to open the door.

"Nakura-san, are you okay?" she asked once she saw the eyepatch and how pale he looked.

Izaya lowered his head, hating to admit that he wasn't as strong as he wanted to be and also because he was embarrassed about her knowing the truth. "Not really," he said and invited her in. He then closed the door and followed her to the couch, struggling to not let out any sounds of pain.

Shizuka watched him, quickly realizing that whatever was wrong with his leg was pretty serious. "What happened?" she asked once he sat down.

Izaya sighed softly and then reclined with his back against the couch, feeling extremely exhausted. "Too many things. Even if I tell you what happened, none of it will make sense unless I tell you everything."

"I have time," she said, smiling gently.

Izaya laughed at her response, admiring her determination. "If I told you the truth, then I'd have to kill you," he warned half-jokingly.

"There would be no point in killing me since I would never betray one of my patients," she assured him, though she had to admit that a tiny part of her was a little bit scared. The fact that the man got into fights so often proved that he led a dangerous life and that he wouldn't shy away from hurting people if he had to. "Besides, I've never abandoned a patient and I'm not about to start now," she then added.

"Okay," Izaya said and took a deep breath, deciding that it was best to let her know why exactly he'd called her. "I'm feeling pretty messed up," he revealed as he ran a shaky hand over his face. "I keep getting flashbacks from that night."

"That's how post-traumatic stress disorder works," Shizuka deadpanned since they were way past the point where she could sugarcoat it. The man smiled at her but his smile was brittle, showing that he was very much aware of that.

"Fujita-san, I was shot in the leg, stabbed in the eye, and that wasn't even the worst of it," Izaya revealed as he lowered his hand and placed it on Yuigadokusonmaru's head. "But like I said, this won't make any sense unless I start with the beginning, which was my decision to take revenge on Shizu-chan by hurting the one person he loves more than life itself: his brother."

Shizuka listened, her eyes widening and her mouth slightly opening a few times as he told her the story. Now more than ever she understood just how dangerous the man was, but at the same time she could tell that he never would've gone that far if Heiwajima Shizuo hadn't raped him, thus throwing him into a downwards spiral of hatred and anger that led to the people around them getting hurt on top of the two further damaging each other. She'd seen a lot of patients with various problems, but this case was unique in more than one aspect. For starters, the two of them wanted to destroy each other but at the same time they didn't seem capable of living without one another. After so many years of fighting, their hatred had become so twisted that even something like rape couldn't keep them apart. The fact that the assailant expressed remorse and had asked for forgiveness more than once was yet another strange aspect of the story since most rapists enjoyed power and would never grovel for forgiveness.

"I don't even know what happened to Dotachin," Izaya said in a pained voice once he reached the part about Ran luring him into that abandoned house. "I'm too afraid to ask my doctor friend if they had found him because… what if he's dead? We had just gotten closer and then this happened. I'm such a coward," he said and rubbed at his eye.

"People prefer uncertainty over knowing the truth when they fear the worst. You believe that your friend was killed, but as long as you don't know that for sure, you can still cling to the hope that he might've somehow survived," Shizuka theorized.

Izaya nodded weakly. He understood what Shizuka was saying, but that didn't make him hate himself any less. Still, he couldn't postpone it for much longer, especially since Ran had taken his jacket and was planning to pin his murder on Aoba. Not that he cared about that little shit hanging around his sisters getting charged with murder, but Izaya didn't want the police to come sniffing around since they could never find out what had happened to Adabashi. He was not so evil as to allow Ruri to get charged with murder after the woman had most likely given that bastard a very slow and painful death. If anything, Izaya was grateful for having been able to walk away from it without getting any blood on his hands.

"What happened next?" Shizuka asked once she realized that he was once again lost in his own mind. It had happened more than once while he told her the story, but every time he was able to come back to the present, albeit a little more shaken than before.

Izaya took a deep breath and continued, his trembling intensifying once he reached the part where Adabashi had ordered Slon to take his clothes off. "I knew at that moment what that psycho had planned," Izaya said in a shaky voice as he tightened his hold around Yuigadokusonmaru, "and once they threw me in that room with the beast, I was certain that it was only a matter of time before Shizu-chan... before he... r-raped me again." Under normal circumstances, he would've been ashamed of sounding so broken and terrified, but since he had expected to lose his voice before he could say it, he felt a bit proud about being able to speak the word out loud in front of his therapist.

Shizuka barely stopped herself from gasping in shock, the man's earlier words coming back to her: "I was shot in the leg, stabbed in the eye, and that wasn't even the worst of it."

"He didn't," Izaya answered her unspoken question once he noticed how pale she'd turned. No matter how professional she was, Shizuka was still human and Izaya couldn't blame her for momentarily losing her impassive mask. "He was planning to die and take down that psychopath with him, but our friends showed up and we were saved. He... he told me to never forgive him just as he was about to kill himself so that I could live." Izaya didn't know why, but he felt a pang in his chest whenever he recalled those words. "At that moment, I truly believed that I could trust him to never hurt me that way again, but after I woke up and my friend planted the seed of doubt in my head, all I can think about is that if things had gone differently, he might've done it after all."

"That's why you're having the flashbacks and you keep losing yourself in your memories," Shizuka concluded. "Unlike the case with your friend, the uncertainty of not knowing is driving you crazy and making you feel as though you will never feel safe again."

Izaya nodded, inwardly cursing Shinra for crushing his hopes. He cared about the man deeply, but the doctor's anger towards Shizuo had only managed to mess him up even more. "I don't know what to do. All I want is to not be scared anymore," he revealed in a pained voice. "I need to be sure that he'd never do it again. It's the only way for me to be able to put this behind and move forward. I can't stop wanting to hurt him as long as he has this power over me, the power to make me afraid."

"Talk to him," Shizuka suggested.

Izaya's head snapped up, his eye glued to her face. Everyone had always told him to stay away from Shizuo, and yet the woman before him, his therapist, was actually telling him to talk to the beast. He almost couldn't believe it.

"I think you can find what you seek if you just ask the right questions."

"What are the right questions?"

Shizuka smiled. "That's for you to figure out since you know him best." She then stood up, knowing that he needed some alone time. "Don't hesitate to call me whenever you wish to talk.

Izaya stood up as well, intending to walk her to the door.

"You don't have to, Nakura-san."

"I insist," Izaya said, smiling back at her.

"If I may ask, how is Hanejima-san doing?" Shizuka asked and then let out a sound of surprise when the man raised his arm and banged it against the wall, effectively stopping her from walking out the door.

"Fujita-san," he started, his voice taking on a dangerous tone, "it seems like you figured it out even though I avoided mentioning names."

"I did some research on Heiwajima Shizuo after our last meeting and that's how I found out that he's Hanejima Yuuhei's brother," Shizuka revealed, her mask of calmness back into place. "You don't have to worry about it though. I won't reveal a thing you've told me to another soul."

Izaya chuckled darkly, still not lowering his arm. "I'm sure that's what Yuuhei used to think as well, at least until that psycho broke him."

"Then we'd better make sure that no one finds out that you've been talking to me."

"I like you, Fujita-san," Izaya revealed, his smile widening. "It's good to know that I didn't make a mistake in picking you."

"I'd say you got lucky, seeing how you only picked me because of my name."

One brown-red eye widened for only a second before Izaya burst into laughter, the woman's words cementing once and for all the belief that she was the perfect therapist for him. "So you figured it out."

"You have a twisted sense of humor, Nakura-san."

"My name is Orihara Izaya," he corrected her, finally feeling comfortable enough to allow her to use his real name. He waited until she nodded before continuing. "A Shizu-chan broke me, so I wanted another Shizu-chan to fix me." He then lowered his arm, certain that the woman before him would not betray him. "Anyway, I've taken too much of your time. Until next time, Fujita-san."

"Until next time, Orihara-san."

Izaya waited until she disappeared around the corner before he closed the door, locked it and made his way back to the couch, trying to gather the strength for the task he knew awaited him, which was to find the right questions that would reveal the truth once and for all. He had a feeling that it would be a very long night.

***

It was sometimes after midnight when Ruri tried to get him to eat something, but Shizuo had once again refused, the mere idea of putting food into his mouth enough to make him gag. That issue aside, he still couldn't believe what Ruri had done to Adabashi. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would've never believed that this tiny woman could torture someone to death. There was a lot more than met the eye when it came to her and he had a feeling that Kasuka knew exactly what that was.

His heart broke even further each time he looked at him, the sight of his little brother looking so frail and broken enough to bring tears to his eyes. He would've gladly taken his place if he could, knowing that he deserved all of that and more. Kasuka would have to live with both the mental and physical scars and the older brother who was supposed to protect him was the one responsible for it all. It made Shizuo feel like a complete failure.

"Shizuo-san, your phone is ringing," he finally heard Ruri say and that's when he noticed that his phone had indeed been ringing. He took it out of his pocket and just stared at it for a few moments, worry creeping up on him at the thought of Izaya looking for him because he couldn't even begin to imagine what the man might want from him. Still, he he couldn't avoid Izaya forever and that the sooner they talked, the better, so he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Ruri to take care of Kasuka since his father had finally convinced his mother to go home and get some sleep and Celty hadn't returned since she left with Shinra.

"Hey," he said once he found a place where he could talk in peace.

"Come to my place. We need to talk."

"I... I'm kind of busy right now," Shizuo tried, hoping that Izaya would leave him alone for a while longer. He was simply not ready to talk to him yet.

"Bring some otoro while you're at it."

Shizuo opened his mouth to explain that he couldn't leave just yet, but the call ended before he could say anything, the flea obviously not accepting any excuses.

Cursing under his breath, he made his way back to the room to explain to Ruri that he had to leave for a bit and to ask her to take care of his brother.

"I won't leave his side," Ruri promised as she ran her slender fingers through Kasuka's too long hair. "I will never let anyone hurt him again."

Somehow, Shizuo believed that.

***

One hour later Shizuo still hadn't arrived and Izaya was starting to lose his patience. He was just about to text the blond when he heard a knock on the door, his hand freezing just as he was about to send the message. His heart started beating wildly inside his chest and he hoped with everything he had that the answer he would get would be the one he wanted to hear. Slowly, he stood up, hands trembling as he made his way to the door. Once there he opened it, his eye widening at the pitiful sight he was met with. Shizuo raised his arm, waiting for him to grab the bag from his hand. Izaya took it and then invited him inside, doing his best to not limp too much on his way back to the couch. "Sit down," he ordered as he indicated to the spot opposite him. "Thanks for the food," he then added as he took the box out of the plastic bag. "I haven't eaten in over three days."

Shizuo lowered his head, not really in the mood to watch Izaya eat since the smell was nauseating enough.

"You look like shit," Izaya remarked as he popped a piece of otoro into his mouth, all the while hoping that Shizuo couldn't see just how messed up he was. His hands were still shaking and he couldn't get them to stop no matter how hard he was trying. The nightmare he'd had was threatening to push its way to the surface and it took Izaya everything he had to remain in the present. "Hey, do you want some? I mean, you bought it after all."

"I'm f-fine," Shizuo lied as he placed his elbows on his thighs and then rested his head in his palms. "Why am I here?"

"Because the uncertainty is killing me," Izaya said. Shizuo laughed at his comment, the sound so broken that it made Izaya start to doubt the blond's sanity.

"Uncertainty is the only thing I've known since the day I met you and it only got worse since that night," Shizuo revealed. "Every day I wonder what you might do next, how you might destroy my life some more..."

Izaya snorted at those words. "You don't know what a real nightmare is until you've had someone thrust into your unwilling body."

Shizuo flinched at the comment, the nausea he was already feeling suddenly intensifying. "I can't even remember what it's like to have a peaceful night of sleep," he continued, not even sure why he was talking about it. "I've lost count of how many times I woke up in the middle of the night, horrified by what I've done to you and terrified of what you might do next, who you might hurt to make me suffer. And yet," Shizuo added, his tone turning sorrowful, "I know that was nothing compared to the horror I inflicted upon you. I'd rather die than put you through that again, you know that!" he assured him, sounding desperate. He raised his head, looking at Izaya through blurry eyes as the flea just stood there, frozen and staring at him in surprise. Shizuo himself couldn't believe that he was talking about such things with Izaya, but after everything he'd been through, he needed someone to talk to, if that someone happened to be the man he'd broken with his own two hands.

"I want to believe you, Shizu-chan, if only for my own mental sanity, but I'm afraid that if things had gone differently, you might've done it," Izaya said once he managed to find his voice, too shocked by Shizuo's confession to react for a few moments.

"Then believe me when I say that I wouldn't have done it no matter what," Shizuo pleaded. "I swear."

"What if Adabashi hadn't left with Kasuka and instead told you to do it right then and there if you didn't want him to cut your brother's face?" Izaya asked, thinking back to the horrible nightmare he'd had earlier that day.

"I still wouldn't have done it," Shizuo said in a trembling voice as he shook his head, trying to get the image of Kasuka getting mutilated out of his head.

Frowning, Izaya put down the piece of otoro he'd picked up before Shizuo had started his little rant. "You can't know that for sure."

"But I can! As horrible as that might have been, I still wouldn't have touched you," Shizuo assured him.

"What if Adabashi put a gun to Kasuka's head and told you to do it if you didn’t want your brother to die? Worse than that, what if Adabashi told you that if you didn't fuck me, he'd rape Kasuka in front of you?"

Shizuo was too horrified by that thought to even be able to reply for a good couple of minutes. "I still wouldn't have touched you," he finally uttered brokenly.

"Liar!" Izaya snapped, his fingers tightening around the edge of the coffee table.

"I know my brother better than anyone. I know that he would rather die than to have someone else suffer because of him. He's going to hate himself enough as it is for believing that he has betrayed us," Shizuo concluded, his heart filled with sadness.

Izaya remained silent, his grip loosening.

"I love Kasuka enough to not betray him like that. Besides, I trusted you with my brother," Shizuo reminded him. "You're a terrifying person, Izaya, and yet I still trusted you with Kasuka because I knew that you would've saved him. And if you still can't trust me, then tell me what I can do to prove it to you."

Izaya looked at Shizuo as though the beast was crazy, thinking that'd be impossible for anyone to prove such a thing. "You're asking the impossible," Izaya finally said as he folded his arms in front of his chest. The beast actually looked disappointed by his comment, which surprised Izaya since he couldn't have ever imagined that Shizuo would be so desperate to prove that he could be trusted.

"Okay," Shizuo said and took a deep breath, hoping that his next words would finally get Izaya to believe him. "You can do anything you want to me right now. I won't fight back, "he promised and closed his eyes.

"Anything?" Izaya asked, blinking in surprise.

"Anything," Shizuo repeated.

Intrigued by the offer, Izaya stood up, his heart speeding up at the prospect of being able to do anything he wanted to the monster who had broken him. "Keep your eyes closed," he ordered, and he was surprised to see the beast's hands trembling just as much as his were. "Anything?" Izaya asked again, still finding it hard to believe that Shizuo would just sit there and take whatever punishment his arch enemy deemed fit.

"Whatever you want, Izaya. Anything that will ease some of that pain you're feeling."

Izaya just stood there for a long time, staring at Shizuo as he tried to think of something that would make him feel better. Unfortunately, he kept coming up blank. He could punch Shizuo and break some of his teeth again, or he could take out his switchblade and mutilate that pretty face which shouldn't belong to a monster, but it all seemed pointless for some reason. Instead, he raised his left hand and placed it on Shizuo's head, the touch causing the beast to flinch at the contact. It's true then, Izaya realized as he ran his fingers through the blonde hair. Shizu-chan really is scared of me. It wasn't just the flinch, but the trembling Izaya could feel beneath his fingers that made him reach that conclusion. But why? It didn't make any sense for someone like Shizuo to be scared of him when the beast could break his bones with hardly any effort at all.

Oh...

That’s when Izaya realized that Shizuo was scared because he felt powerless. Perhaps just as powerless as Izaya had felt every time he found himself in Shizuo's presence. Izaya didn't know and didn't care how that happened, but for the first time in a long time, he felt the fear starting to fade away, that crippling feeling being replaced by confidence. And it was then when he figured out what would be his next step towards healing.

"Touch me," he ordered, the command startling Shizuo so much that the blond pulled away from him and opened his eyes, those light brown, almost yellow eyes looking even more terrified than before.

"W-What?" Shizuo stuttered, thinking he must've misheard the flea.

Izaya turned around, pushed the otoro box towards the corner to make some room and then sat down on the coffee table, the two arch enemies now facing each other. "I said, touch me," Izaya repeated his earlier command, a small smile forming on his lips at the sight of a shocked beast.

Shizuo frantically shook his head, his hands twitching on top of trembling as he hid them beneath his arms. "I promised I won't t-touch you again," he said without even raising his head to look at the man sitting in front of him. It was a classical case of doomed if you do, doomed if you don't. Or maybe it was just Izaya trying to trick him into touching him so that he could afterwards accuse him of lying.

"You're overthinking it," Izaya said with a sigh before he leaned forward, grabbed a fistful of blonde hair and forced the beast to look at him. "The wrist you broke, grab it."

"I d-don't understand," Shizuo uttered fearfully. "Why?"

"I was never afraid of you before. I want to go back to that. The problem is that every time you touch me, I remember how much it hurt, and I can't go back to not being afraid until I get past that fear," Izaya explained and released Shizuo's hair. As much as it shamed him to admit, especially in front of his archenemy, he was terrified of the beast touching him and he knew that he would never stop being afraid until he replaced the memories of those painful grips on his body with regular touches. He was very much aware of how crazy that sounded, but he was tired of fearing human contact and the least the idiotic beast could do was help him heal. "Grab my wrist," he repeated as he raised his trembling hand and closed his eyes.

Shizuo somehow understood where Izaya was coming from, but he was still skeptical about the whole thing since the last thing he wanted was for his actions to give the flea a panic attack. Still, Izaya was waiting, the man pretty much telling him that he trusted him, and Shizuo found himself raising his hand and loosely wrapping his fingers around Izaya's bandaged wrist. He remembered the satisfaction he'd felt breaking it that night and he hated himself for ever letting his hatred turn him into a monster. As expected, Izaya flinched at the contact and pulled back his hand, the man's breathing turning erratic as he cradled the appendage to his chest as though Shizuo's mere touch had damaged it. "I'm sorry," Shizuo found himself apologizing even though it had been Izaya's idea to begin with. "I shouldn't have touched you after all."

Izaya shook his head and then took a deep breath before once more raising his hand. "Again," he requested even as his entire body trembled and he was trying to fight the memories threatening to resurface.

Now that he knew how badly Izaya needed this since he was pushing himself so hard, Shizuo nodded and once again loosely wrapped his fingers around the man's wrist. This time, Izaya didn't pull it away, but Shizuo could tell just how much he was struggling to keep it there. Even though he wasn't hurting Izaya at that moment, he still felt like a monster, especially after falling into Adabashi's trap and going after Izaya. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you," he said, his eyes fixed on his own hand. He received no reply, but he assumed that was because it took Izaya everything he had to maintain the contact. Surprisingly enough, it was Shizuo who pulled away his hand first, the action surprising Izaya. "Don't push yourself so hard from the start," he said softly. "Anyway, I think I'd better leave now," he then added once he realized just how pale Izaya looked. He stood up and headed for the door, but stopped once he heard the flea's voice.

"There's something I need to know," Izaya said as he gathered the courage to inquire about Kadota. "Have you... have you heard anything about... Dotachin? Last time I saw him, I was being dragged away by Slon and Ran was trying to kill him."

"So that's what happened..." Shizuo said as he grabbed the handle.

The comment made Izaya think that indeed Shizuo knew something. "Is he... still alive?"

"Someone heard the commotion and called the police," Shizuo answered, frowning. He'd been worried about Kadota too, this whole time wondering what had happened to the man. "They rushed him to the hospital and put him into an... induced coma I think? That's what I remember Ryo telling me."

"Ryo?" Izaya asked, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"Sakamoto," Shizuo explained. "He wants us to call him by his name from now on. Anyway, Ryo thinks that Kadota will make it. He sounded hopeful."

Izaya released the breath he didn't even know he was holding. "That's good," he said, his tone one of relief. "That's very good."

"Yeah, it is. Anyway, I'm off. Finish the food and then get some rest. You look like shit too." Once outside, he leaned against the door, heart hammering inside his chest. He still couldn't believe what had just happened, but above everything, he was grateful that Izaya was willing to give him a chance to prove that he could be trusted. A part of him still really hated Izaya, but that hatred paled in comparison to the guilt and regret he felt towards his past actions. Just don't think about it, he told himself as he started walking away. After all, he didn't have the right to feel sorry for himself when Kasuka was lying in a hospital because of him.

Chapter 97: Moth Into Flame

Izaya was sitting in his desk chair looking out the window when he heard the door unlock and he spun around, eye wide as he stared at the door while his heart beat wildly inside his chest. A few moments later he relaxed, berating himself for being so stupid as to not realize that Shinra would obviously have his key since the doctor had brought him home.

"You should be in bed," Shinra admonished as he made his way to Izaya and placed the key on the desk. "I forgot to give it back yesterday," he said, sounding apologetic since he'd seen Izaya's panicked expression and he felt bad for having startled him.

Izaya waved a dismissive hand and was about to turn around and go back to staring out the window when he suddenly froze, his eye fixed on Shinra's face. "Something happened," he said, his bloodshot eye further narrowing as the sound of Shinra's awkward laughter reached his ears. "I'm guessing you convinced Celty not to leave you."

"Of course I did!" Shinra chirped. "After all, I bet my life on it."

Izaya smiled sincerely. "I'm happy for you."

"I'm so happy too~" Shinra said in a singsong voice, his eyes nearly sparkling with joy.

"If you're so happy then why do you look like you haven't gotten any slee― Oh!"

As expected, Shinra froze, the man looking like a deer caught in the headlights for what felt like forever before he finally raised his right hand and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Well, stuff happened and I... we... you know what I mean," he stammered and turned around, his cheeks burning with embarrasment.

"Oh, I know."

"But how?" Shinra asked as he turned to him again, pouting and folding his arms in front of his chest.

As much as it hurt to even talk about such things because of his trauma, Izaya pushed his own pain aside for the sake of his friend. He was genuinly happy for Shinra and he wasn't about to ruin his friend's happiness because of how utterly terrified he was of intimate contact. For Shinra's sake, he would joke and pretend that he was fine. "You have that same idiotic grin most men have after they've finally done it for the first time."

Light grey eyes went wide for only a second before Shinra raised his hands and covered his face, feeling too embarrased to even look at Izaya. "I'm not grinning!"

"Then why are you covering your face?" Izaya teased, chuckling.

"Because you're making fun of me," Shinra mumbled as he lowered his hands, revealing the most adorable pout Izaya had ever seen.

"How could I not? You're just so easy to make fun of~" Shinra's happines was contagious and Izaya found himself smiling like he hadn't done in a very long time. "Our Shinra is finally a man!"

"Stop making fun of me!" Shinra complained as he covered his face once again.

"Now I can die in peace," Izaya said mocklingly as he raised a hand, placed it on his chest and sighed in relief. "I must confess that I had my doubts, but I always believed in you!" Grinning, he put his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on top of his interlaced fingers. "So, was it everything you ever hoped it would be?"

"A lady never kisses and tells~" Shinra chirped as he lowered his hands and stared at Izaya's face, smirking.

"You're not a lady though, so it's fine~"

Shinra gasped in mock-hurt.

"Don't give me that! It's not like I'm asking for details," Izaya continued with a sigh. "I just... I want to know if you two will be okay."

Smiling, Shinra leaned forward and placed his right hand on top of Izaya's head. "You're so cute when you worry about me," he teased.

Izaya swatted the hand away, looking embarrased. "It's not entirely selfless, you know? If you went ahead and died of a broken heart, who would nurse me back to health next time I get hurt?" He couldn't look at Shinra though as he said those words, he too now feeling embarrassed. Still, he found himself sighing softly when the hand returned, the doctor's soft touch as Shinra ran long fingers through his hair enough to make it hard for him to not lean into the touch.

"I know," Shinra said as he pulled back his hand, Izaya reminding him of a cat starved for affection. Still, there was something they needed to talk about and he couldn't postpone the discussion any longer. "I know this is probably the worst moment for me to mention it, but I want you to know that I won't let anyone take Celty's head."

"What's the point of living forever if you're broken? I can't even bother to think about that right now," Izaya revealed as he rested his head on the desk, feeling exhausted.

Even though he knew that Izaya might get angry at him for even mentioning it, Shinra still had to ask. "Did something happen yesterday while talking to that person?"

"Yeah... I... I figured out what I want to do," Izaya said, forcing himself to raise his head and smile. "I want to put the past behind me and move forward. I want to heal."

"That's great news!" Shinra chirped happily. "Just tell me how I can help."

"There is something you can do," Izaya said as he pushed his upper body off the desk without breaking eye contact. "I need you to stop planting ideas in my head."

Shinra blinked in surprise. "What exactly did I do?"

Sighing, Izaya reclined further into his chair. "You telling me all the time how I can't trust Shizuo to not do it again is not helping. I need to believe that he won't do it in order to get better."

"But Shizuo―"

"I know!" Izaya interrupted him, not willing to let Shinra shatter the tranquility he'd achieved after talking to Shizuo the night before. "Shizu-chan and I have been through a lot of dangerous situations the past eight or so months and not once did he try to do anything remotely sexual."

"But studies show that―"

"Screw the studies!" Izaya hissed. "I hate him and I always will. He humiliated me and broke me and I will never forgive him, but I don't think he'd do it again. He's scared of me. He knows that I can hurt the people he loves, so he won't dare try something like that again."

"I'm just worried about you," Shinra uttered softly, not wanting to further anger Izaya. That night had been horrifying and Shinra never wanted to see Izaya like that again.

"Look at the bright side. If he does it again, it means that you get to experiment on him to your heart's content," Izaya said, smirking. "You've always wanted to know how that monstrous body of his works anyway." Shinra wasn't saying anything, but Izaya could tell that he was close to convincing him.

"Deal," Shinra said after a while, frowning. He didn't like Izaya being anywhere near Shizuo but he knew that no one could convince Izaya otherwise once he set his mind on something. He could only hope that Izaya would not get hurt again. "Just be careful, okay?"

"I will," Izaya promised. "I understand Shizu-chan much better than I did back then. I won't make the same mistakes again."

"Good. That's good. Anyway, I just remembered that I have something to do, so do you mind if I leave for a couple of hours? I'll be back as soon as I can."

"You don't need to babysit me," Izaya assured him. "I'll be fine. I'll ask Shizu-chan to bring me some food when he comes by later. It's the least that idiot can do after all the hell he put me through. Actually, it'd be better if you didn't come back again today. Not that I don't enjoy your company, but I know sparks will start flying if you two run into each other."

"Alright then," Shinra said, smiling, even though his eye was twitching.

"Before you go," Izaya said, stopping Shinra just as the doctor was about to walk out the door, "I need to know how Dotachin is doing."

"The doctors at the hospital put him into an induced coma, but they took him out now that the swelling in his brain has gone down. He should wake up in a few days."

"That's good," Izaya said, sounding relieved. As much as he hated the idea of people knowing what happened to him, he had realized that he was not too bothered by the fact that Kadota had figured it out.

 "I wonder what happened to him," Shinra mused as he pressed the handle.

"Izumii Ran happened. It turns out that Ran fooled me into believing that Slon had died when in fact, the two of them had made a deal."

"Ah, I see. Well, he'll be fine, so don't worry about him and just rest, okay? And be careful with Shizuo."

"I will!" Izaya promised.

***

Shizuo was outside of the hospital smoking a cigarette when he saw Shinra approach, the man's terrifying expression a clear sign that whatever the doctor had to say, it wouldn't be pleasant. He inwardly groaned and leaned against the wall, his arms falling limply by his sides.

"I heard you were going to see Izaya today," Shinra said, cutting straight to the subject.

"I am?" Shizuo asked tiredly as he raised his hand and took a drag from the cigarette.

"Izaya said so," Shinra hissed, all the while glowering at Shizuo.

Shizuo shrugged. "Then I guess I am."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why can't you just stay away from him?"

"Believe me, I've tried," Shizuo said with a sigh, "but Izaya wants me to help him with something and I can't refuse him."

"Leave the city," Shinra suggested.

Shizuo ran a hand over his face, another sigh leaving his chapped lips. "You think there's any place on this planet where Izaya wouldn't be able to find me?"

"I'll help you," Shinra offered, not even caring that he sounded a bit desperate. "I know people who can―" He couldn't finish though because Shizuo's phone rang and the blond answered it.

Cursing under his breath, Shinra walked away for a bit, deciding it was best to give the man some privacy. He waited until Shizuo ended the conversation and then went back to him. "As I was saying, I know people who can help you with that."

"I'm sorry, but I have to go," Shizuo said as he crushed the remainder of the cigarette beneath the sole of his shoe.

"But what about―"

"I'll think about it," Shizuo promised and walked away, not liking Shinra's idea but not entirely dismissing it either.

***

Izaya ended up falling asleep in his chair sometimes after Shinra left. He woke up a few hours later, cursing under his breath as he stretched his stiff body. On the bright side, he couldn't recall what he'd dreamed about, which beat waking up in a sweat after a horrible nightmare that involved a certain beast with inhuman strength. Sighing, he picked up the phone and called Shizuo, asking him to come over and to bring him some otoro. He then slowly made his way up the stairs and into the bathroom, desperately needing a bath since he felt dirty.

Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out a way to wash his hair without getting any water on the eyepatch and the bandage beneath, so in the end he just picked up a sponge and used it to wash his body, deciding to leave the hair for later. His leg hurt less than it had the day before, but walking was still pretty difficult and because of that he found himself sitting on the edge of the tub since his leg couldn't support him for longer than a few minutes at a time.

After what felt like forever, he stood up, wrapped a towel around his waist and then limped out of the bathroom, not expecting to find Shizuo standing in his living room with a bag in his hand and looking at him with what Izaya could only describe as shock.

"I'm so sorry!" Shizuo shouted the apology as he turned around and covered his face with his right hand thinking that he was a shitty person for entering someone's house uninvited. "I knocked b-but no one answered and s-since the door was o-open..." Shizuo stuttered lamely, his face burning with shame.

It took Izaya a full minute to get over his shock and move in the direction of the bedroom, his whole body trembling as he tried to remind himself that Shizuo wouldn't jump him just because he was wearing nothing more than a towel. The beast had proven himself during their capture and Izaya wouldn't let such an incident destroy the little progress he'd made the previous day.

Shizuo continued to just stand there feeling like shit until he heard the door close, the idea that he'd just fucked up badly making him feel extremely nervous. He no longer wanted Izaya to get mad at him, but the flea would obviously be pissed after what had just occurred and Shizuo had no idea how he was going to deal with it. Swallowing nervously, he placed the bag on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, trembling fingers pulling at his dyed locks. He was so busy scolding himself for being an idiot that he didn't even hear the door open and then close nor the sounds of footsteps as Izaya made his way down the stairs.

"I'm fine," Izaya assured him as he sat down, his voice startling Shizuo who looked at him with wide eyes filled with guilt.

"I didn't think―"

"I said, it's fine!" Izaya hissed in annoyance as he pulled the box out of the plastic bag and placed it on the coffee table. "I should've closed the door after Shinra left."

"I'm still sorry," Shizuo uttered regretfully. "All I seem to be doing is hurting you."

"We're enemies," Izaya deadpanned. "We're supposed to hurt each other."

"Yeah, but―"

"I'm fine with it as long as you don't cross that line again," Izaya cut him off. He then lowered his head, not wanting Shizuo to see his expression as he spoke the next words. "That... I can't... I can't go through that again. Yesterday, before I called you, I had a nightmare. You were in it. You were... you did what Adabashi ordered you to do." Just thinking about it made him sick and he raised a hand and placed it over his mouth, trying not to throw up and at the same time praying that he wouldn't end up having a panic attack in front of the blond. "You were crying too." Izaya raised his head, not expecting the beast to look so crushed. "I think that a part of me always wanted to believe you," he then added in a voice so soft that it almost sounded like a whisper.

Shizuo, who was at a loss for words, remained silent for a long time, not knowing what he could even say to that. Eventually, he opened his mouth, his words too barely above a whisper as he uttered a soft "thank you."

Izaya sighed softly and was just about to eat when he noticed the blood on Shizuo's right sleeve. "What happened to you?"

Shizuo tilted his head in confusion, not understand what Izaya was talking about until the man pointed to his right arm.

"It must've happened while I was helping Aozaki-san with something," Shizuo answered, sounding indifferent. "It's nothing."

"That's the Yakuza for you," Izaya said, frowning, "asking you to fight for them even when your brother is lying in a hospital bed."

"I owe Aozaki-san a debt since his men were the ones who got rid of Adabashi's body," Shizuo explained.

"Ruri killed him."

Shizuo blinked in surprise, wondering if Shinra had told him about it. "Please keep it a secret."

Izaya snorted, surprised that Shizuo would believe him to be so petty as to rat Ruri out to the police. "My lips are sealed," he promised. "Anyway, I'll bring some bandages," he said and was about to stand up when Shizuo stopped him.

"Don't bother. I'll be fine. It's just a scratch."

Sighing, Izaya stood up. "You can die from an infected scratch."

"Maybe that would be for the best. Besides, aren't you mad that I took Celty's head?"

"Being angry wouldn't change anything. There's no point in crying over spilled milk," Izaya said and headed up the stairs. "Unless it's Shizu-chan. I'm sure you'd cry over spilled milk," he then added, chuckling. Slowly, he made his way to the bathroom, picked up the first-aid kit and then made his way downstairs, all the while thinking that perhaps he should take another painkiller since his leg was starting to hurt quite a bit. "Take off your jacket," Izaya ordered as he sat down next to Shizuo.

"I can do it myself," Shizuo said nervously as he raised his hands in an attempt to keep Izaya away from him.

"I need to do this," Izaya made it clear, his tone leaving no room for discussion.

"And what is that, hah? Torture yourself?" Shizuo hissed even as he proceeded to take off his jacket.

"We've talked about this yesterday and you agreed to help," Izaya reminded him and swallowed nervously once he realized that Shizuo was starting to get angry.

"Can't you use Shinra for this?" Shizuo growled as he placed the jacket behind him on the couch, all the while the doctor's words ringing loudly in his head. Perhaps Shinra was right and the best thing he could do was to disappear.

"I can't," Izaya said in what could only be described as annoyance. He then opened the box and proceeded to disinfect the wound, his hands trembling because of how nervous he was being so close to Shizuo when the beast was obviously angry. "Shinra... he... his touch doesn't bother me at all."

As much as he hated to admit, Shizuo felt something akin to jealousy at the though of Izaya being so comfortable around Shinra. It wasn't the type of jealousy one would feel towards a lover, but a feeling born from the fact that Shizuo desperately wished for Izaya to no longer fear him. He missed the defiant flea who would challenge him at every turn with a smirk on his face and a spark of playfulness hidden behind the hatred in his eyes. His gaze settled on Izaya's eyepatch and he cursed Slon in his mind for having done such a thing to Izaya. He was tempted to ask just how bad it was but he didn't want to further upset Izaya when the flea already looked like he was one step away from having a panic attack.

"Shizu-chan, calm d-down," Izaya stuttered a bit when he noticed Shizuo's expression turning from angry to terrifying. He pulled back his hands and swallowed nervously, wanting to get away but too afraid to move for some reason.

Shizuo blinked a few times and then felt like punching himself in the face for not realizing sooner that Izaya could pick up on the anger he felt on the inside since he'd always been terrible at hiding his emotions. "I'm not angry at you," Shizuo assured him as he ran a hand over his face, trying to calm down.

Izaya nodded and picked up the bandages, forcing his hands to move as he clumsily wrapped Shizuo's wound. He'd done this task many times before, and yet it was as though he'd forgotten how to do it. He blamed it on the nervousness and on the fact that he was still feeling pretty messed up after what Adabashi had put him through. Still, that was no excuse to skip what was supposed to happen next. "Grab my wrist," he said as he raised his arm.

"What are we doing, flea?" Shizuo asked, his eyes glued to Izaya's trembling hand.

"Facing our past," Izaya replied with his eye closed as he waited for the beast to touch him. Even though he expected it, he still ended up pulling back his hand the second he felt Shizuo's fingers touch his skin. Once again, he cradled the wrist to his chest, breathing heavily.

Shizuo huffed a laugh that died somewhere in his throat, making it hard to swallow. "You don't know when to give up, do you?"

"When have I ever?" Izaya replied and slowly raised his hand again, this time not closing his eye since that seemed to startle him too much.

Sighing, Shizuo raised his hand as well, but this time he didn't touch Izaya and instead opened his palm. "It might be easier if you make the first move," he explained when the flea gave him a confused look.

Nodding, Izaya swallowed nervously and placed his wrist on Shizuo's palm, this time fighting with everything he had to not pull it back as the fingers slowly began to close around it. His whole body felt cold and he couldn't help but shudder, but he still didn't pull back, his mind set on fighting the fear. As the minutes ticked by, the grip around his wrist felt less suffocating and he slightly relaxed, even going so far as to smile at the beast looking ready to release him at any moment.

"See? Shizu-chan can be human too when he wants to," he said and reclined against the couch, feeling relaxed enough to even close his eye. Instinct told him to get the hell away from the beast who had nearly killed him, but his mind kept him rooted to the spot, the rational part of his brain continuously reminding him that Shizuo regretted his actions and that the blond would not do it again. Even after falling into Adabashi's trap and believing that Izaya had taken Kasuka, Shizuo still hadn't touched him in a way that would be considered inappropriate.

Unlike the previous time, Shizuo didn't release Izaya and instead continued to hold the frail wrist in such a way that would allow the man to easily free himself if he so chose, knowing that it was best to let him do as he wished. Shinra's offer had its appeal since it would be much easier to run away than to face his sins, but Shizuo had a feeling that disappearing would only further hurt Izaya and rob him of his chance to heal.

"How's your brother?" Izaya asked and he felt Shizuo's hand twitch and the grip around his wrist tighten a bit. Shizuo was most likely not even aware that he was doing it, but it didn't hurt so Izaya let it be.

"What if... what if he'll never be... okay?" It had only taken Shizuo a few minutes to destroy Izaya and he couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to get tortured for months on end by a sadist. "What if… he's broken?"

Izaya opened his eye, his gaze settling on Shizuo. "I think it's a matter of how broken he is, not if he's broken." He almost expected the grip to further tighten around his wrist, but it looked like Shizuo was still very much mindful of what he was doing even though he was badly hurting on the inside. "He had to have broken in order to betray his beloved nii-san."

"I doubt he's going to want to see me once he wakes up. There's no way he won't hate me after this."

"Then you don't know your brother as well as you think you do."

"Are you angry at him?" Shizuo asked fearfully.

Izaya was upset that Adabashi had found out about what happened, but he couldn't blame Kasuka for breaking after so much torture. He of all people knew just how easily even the strongest could break. "I'd be a hypocrite to hate him when I would've done anything to escape that room," Izaya revealed. "You don't understand because you're not someone who has ever experienced true humiliation." To his surprise, Shizuo abruptly released his wrist and stood up, the beast suddenly looking very tense.

"I'm sorry," Shizuo said and headed for the door, leaving a stunned Izaya behind.

"Shizu-chan, wait!" Izaya shouted once he found his voice, but by then it was too late. "Damn you, Shizu-chan." He hated it whenever Shizuo apologized, but at the same time he was grateful to hear the words. I hope you never stop being sorry. If I have to live with the shame of losing to you in such a humiliating manner, then you'd better live with the guilt.

Chapter 98: Beneath the Surface

After his visit to Izaya's apartment, Shizuo went home to take a shower, changed his bloody clothes and then went back to the hospital, not caring that he hadn't slept or eaten in days. All he knew was that everything was his fault and that he deserved all the pain and suffering he was going through. His little brother however didn't deserve any of it and Shizuo would've given anything to be able to trade places with him. The mere thought of a broken Kasuka was terrifying and Shizuo had no idea how he would ever be able to look his brother in the eyes knowing that Kasuka had been through hell because of him. He remembered his little brother saying that he could never hate him no matter what, but that was before Kasuka had been tortured for months. There was no way his brother would ever be okay, not after Shizuo had witnessed Kasuka sobbing in front of him.

"I'm sorry," he uttered brokenly as he ran his fingers through Kasuka's hair, glad to finally have a few moments alone with his little brother now that both Ruri and his mother had left to get something to eat. "All of this is my fault, so I won't blame you if you hate me when you wake up." Without stopping what he was doing, he placed his other arm on the bed and then rested his head on top of it, hoping that closing his eyes for a few minutes would be enough to chase away the exhaustion he couldn't help but feel after not sleeping or eating for so many days. "None of this would've happened to you if I hadn't been born," he then added in a trembling voice as his eyes filled with tears.

It wasn't just Kasuka, but Izaya also. He'd put the man through hell and Shizuo felt nauseous every time he thought about what he'd done to him. He felt so disgusted with himself that he could barely breathe through the suffocating guilt. The mere thought of Izaya still having nightmares about him was enough to make him want to jump off a building to just end it all. The idea had crossed his mind more than once, but he wasn't so selfish as to put his family through hell just for the sake of not feeling anything anymore. His mother was a wreck and the last thing the women needed was for one of her sons to die while the other was in the hospital, broken in both body and mind.

And as he sat there, half resting on Kasuka's bed, the sound of the heart monitor lulled him to sleep. Much like Izaya, he found himself back in that room, drowning in feelings of helplessness and despair while he could do nothing but watch as Adabashi held his little brother by the hair, the man laughing sadistically as he pushed the blade into Kasuka's mouth, giving him an ultimatum. Unfortunately, no matter how much he pleaded, begged and threatened the man, he couldn't get Adabashi to let him go. It was only when the man started slicing at the corner of Kasuka's mouth that Shizuo finally broke down and promised to do anything if the sadist stopped. His brother's cries of pain were pure torture and Shizuo felt himself dying on the inside as he turned to Izaya and captured him between his body and the wall, immediately covering the flea's mouth so that he could not hear him beg.

He told himself that he would do it for Kasuka's sake, and yet the terror he could read in the red-brown eye hurt so much that Shizuo's resolution wavered, his legs going weak at the knees and his hand slipping away from Izaya's mouth and going limp by his side. Izaya pushed him away and Shizuo fell down on the floor, his body no longer listening to him. That's when he knew that he couldn't do it. A few moments later he thought he heard Adabashi say something, but his ears were ringing too loudly and he couldn't decipher the words behind the sounds his heart was making as it was trying to burst out of his chest. Then Kasuka started screaming and Shizuo could do nothing but close his eyes, covers his ears and scream as well since the horror of it all was too much for him to bear. That's when he finally woke up, struggling to breathe like a fish out of water.

"Son, calm down. It was only a nightmare," Kichirou said softly as he placed a hand on his son's shoulder.

Shizuo shuddered at the memory. "Kasuka... he..."

"Your brother is safe now," Kichirou told him and lightly squeezed Shizuo's shoulder, "so go get some proper rest."

"I can't... I... I have to watch over him."

"Nothing will happen to him. Your mother and I will watch over him," Kichirou promised, his heart breaking at the sight of his son looking so defeated. His heart ached terribly over what had happened to his youngest, but it also hurt to see his eldest looking so utterly crushed.

"I'm fine," Shizuo tried to assure him even as his whole body continued to tremble after the terrible nightmare he'd had.

Seeing that he couldn't reason with him, Kichirou decided to try another strategy. "Do you want to see your mother cry because you ended up passing out in front of her?"

Shizuo winced at his father's words and stood up, deciding it was best to get out of there for a while if only to avoid his mother seeing him looking so weak. "I'm sorry," he said and walked out of the hospital room, all the while struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Once in the hallway, he turned left and headed in the direction of the bathroom, nearly stumbling on his own feet because of how weak he felt. That wasn't even the worst of it. He might have been awake, but inside his head, he could still hear Kasuka's screams as Adabashi mutilated his face. If Hell was a real place, he was certain that his punishment would be to either see his little brother tortured in front of him or to see himself attack Izaya but be unable to stop it. If Hell really existed, Shizuo had no doubt that he'd be sent there when he finally died.

***

The sun was just about to set when Izaya received a call from Sakamoto telling him that Kadota was awake and that he kept asking for him. He felt relief at the news, but then the worry set in when he realized why Kadota wanted to see him. Sighing, he slowly and carefully got dressed, swallowed more painkillers than was recommended and called a taxi, hoping that he wouldn't be in too much pain for at least a couple of hours.

The ride there was uneventful, and once he arrived at the hospital, he pulled the hood over his head and walked in, doing his best to not limp too much. He was weak and he hated that, especially when he knew that weakness made him an easy prey. Just because a few of the people who wanted to hurt him were dead, it didn't mean that he was suddenly safe. There were still many who wanted him destroyed and who would take advantage of the fact that he was weak to get their revenge.

Once inside, he sent Sakamoto a message and then waited for the doctor to come get him since he wasn't in the mood to ask around for directions to Kadota room. That and he wanted to know exactly how Kadota was doing, something that Sakamoto could best answer.

"Yo," the doctor greeted him with a smile.

"Hey," Izaya greeted back before he jumped straight to the subject. "Take me to Dotachin."

Sakamoto Ryo shook his head in disbelief. "You still refer to him by that nickname?"

"Dotachin is Dotachin," Izaya answered with a shrug as he stepped inside the elevator.

"He'll be fine," the man said as if guessing what was going on through Izaya's head. "He had me worried for a while there, but I had a feeling he'd pull through."

Izaya gave him a skeptical look, not so sure that anyone would ever be okay after getting hit so many times in the head with a hammer. A few moments later the elevator stopped and they got out, Sakamoto leading him to Kadota's room.

"I'll give you two some privacy," the doctor said and walked away while Izaya pressed the handle and walked in.

"Izaya!" Kadota exclaimed, his tone one of relief now that he could see for himself that Izaya was okay. The man had been shot last time he'd seen him and Kadota had ended up passing out thinking that Izaya was just as dead as he was.

Izaya sat down in the chair next to the bed, his smile hiding the worry he felt at the sight of his high school mate looking so hurt. Kadota's face was swollen, with one eye closed shut and the man's skin covered in bruises.

"You okay?" Kadota asked, his eye roaming over Izaya's body.

"I'm fine," Izaya answered quickly as he waved a dismissive hand. Kadota's sight seemed to be glued to his eye, so Izaya continued to smile. "Don't worry about it. This is nothing," he said softly as he pointed to his eyepatch. Kadota however didn't look fine and Izaya knew that the man was struggling to remain awake. "I assume this is about what we're going to tell the police," Izaya cut straight to the subject since it looked like it was hard for Kadota to speak.

Kadota nodded slowly. "This officer called Sawazaki was here and―"

"I know him," Izaya cut him off, wanting to spare Kadota the effort. "He wants to know who did this to you, but you're not sure what to tell him since I was involved." Once Kadota nodded, Izaya continued. "You thought you could keep me out of it, but then you realized that if Ran gets caught, he will mention my name and then the both of us will be in trouble."

"Yeah..."

Leaning forward a bit, Izaya placed his hand on Kadota's arm. "Tell him the truth, or at least the truth of what happened that night. You don't need to go into details. You don't know why that man was after me anyway, so let me deal with that."

"You sure?" Kadota asked, his tone betraying the exhaustion he felt.

"I'm sure," Izaya said, smiling gently. "That aside, how are you?"

"Feels like my brain is too big for my skull," Kadota muttered as he closed his eye.

Chuckling, Izaya lightly squeezed the man's arm. "That's an accurate description. Sakamoto assured me that you'll be fine though, and I believe him."

"You better go," Kadota said after a few moments of silence.

Izaya pulled back his hand. "I'll stay until you fall asleep."

"Erika will be here soon. You need to go," Kadota warned since he knew that a meeting between the two could spell disaster, especially if Erika started ranting about Shizuo and Izaya being secret lovers like she often did.

Izaya quickly stood up, swallowing nervously. "Ah, I see. Well, in that case, I'll be on my way. I'll try to visit again sometimes when the fujoshi isn't around."

Kadota laughed and then hissed because of how much his head hurt. "I'd appreciate that."

Izaya waved good bye and then walked out of the room, pushing himself to walk faster. He looked back for only a second to see if the woman was anywhere nearby and that's when he ran into someone coming out of another hospital room. As irony has it, said someone happened to be none other than Hijiribe Ruri. The two of them stared at each other, neither of them apologizing for running into the other. Finally, it was Izaya who spoke first. "How is Kasu-chan doing?"

"Yuuhei is strong," Ruri answered as though that was the only thing that mattered. She now knew that Izaya had truly not taken her beloved, but that still didn't change the feelings of dislike she held towards him.

Izaya reclined against the wall since his leg was starting to hurt quite a lot and he regretted not bringing more painkillers with him. "I hope so," he said, sounding honest. Regardless of what had happened in the past, Izaya was no longer the horrible person who would've wanted to see Kasuka hurt just so that Shizuo would suffer. He'd changed, and even though Izaya knew that such a change made him weaker, it also made him feel better about himself and that was enough to see it as progress on his journey to healing from the wounds inflicted on him in the past. Kasuka aside, there was something he badly needed to know. "About that sadist..." he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Ruri moved closer until she was standing in front of him, raised a hand, placed it on Izaya's nape and then pulled his head lower until she could whisper directly into his ear. "I cut open his chest and then pulled his ribs out one by one. He died screaming in agony."

Izaya swallowed nervously and tried to raise his head and hopefully make her release the hold she had on him, but she kept her grip firm, even tightening her fingers so that he couldn't pull away.

"I'll try to be more creative with the next person who hurts my Yuuhei," she warned, making it clear that she wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he ever dared to mess with Kasuka in any way. Once she knew that he'd gotten the message, Ruri lowered her hand and walked away, leaving a pale-looking Orihara Izaya behind.

"Wait," Izaya stopped her just as she was about to go around the corner. "Is Shizu-chan inside?"

"Celty-san went to his apartment earlier since she was worried about him, but he wasn't home. That's the only thing I know," Ruri answered and then went on her way.

As disturbing as the meeting with Ruri had been, Izaya had to admit that he was glad to hear that Adabashi had died such a horrible death. Izaya liked to believe that he could love all humans equally, but the truth was that he would never be able to love someone as twisted as Adabashi. Even Shizuo who had broken him in the worst possible way seemed more human than the sadist and that said a lot about how horrible of a person Adabashi Kisuke was. He hated Adabashi so much for wanting to get Shizuo to rape him again and for hurting Shinra that Izaya wished he'd been there while Ruri slowly and painfully killed him. Still, he had to give him credit for successfully pushing Shizuo into an even deeper and darker pit of despair, something that Izaya wouldn't have been able to do since he'd realized a long time ago that hurting Kasuka, the person who had saved him, was not something he ever wanted to do again.

As for Shizuo, there was clearly something going on with the idiot besides the whole Kasuka thing and Izaya wanted to know what it was because he couldn't stand the thought of being in the dark when it came to anything. "Now... where might you be, Shizu-chan," Izaya mused as he pushed himself away from the wall and started walking down the long corridor. "Rooftop," he realized a few moments later since there was no way that the blond would be able to stay away from his precious little brother. He took the elevator to the top floor and then smirked to himself when he saw the broken lock, clearly indicating that a beast with inhuman strength was or had been there at some point. He pushed the door open and walked out on to the rooftop, his eye falling on the miserable-looking beast sitting there and smocking what looked like the tenth or so cigarette if the cigarette butts lying at his feet were any indication.

Shizuo raised his head, his mocha eyes going wide at the sight of Izaya approaching him. "Izaya...?" he squeaked in surprise, not expecting to see the man again since they'd already met earlier that day. The truth was that it hurt to see him since every time he looked at him, Shizuo couldn't help but feel as though he was chocking with guilt. There was also quite a bit of anger in there, but the guilt was far stronger than the hatred he felt for the man he had destroyed and who had destroyed him in return.

"Figured you were here," Izaya said smugly once he stopped in front of him.

"I guess you know me better than anyone," Shizuo remarked, sounding annoyed, as he stood up, not liking the position he was in with Izaya towering over him. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I went to see Dotachin and then I ran into Ruri who told me that you were not at home." Shizuo gave him a confused look, so Izaya continued. "Celty went to your place earlier and she couldn't find you there. Obviously, since you've been on the hospital's rooftop this whole time, stewing in your own self-hatred and guilt."

"You must be enjoying this, huh?" Shizuo growled the words, suddenly feeling extremely angry that the flea could read him so easily.

"I can't deny it," Izaya admitted with a shrug. "It sort of balances out, you know? I'm stuck with feeling ashamed over losing to you in such an unsightly manner while you're stuck feeling guilty for proving to me that you are indeed a monster."

"We both lost in the end, huh?" Shizuo concluded as he took another drag from the cigarette.

"Yes, we have," Izaya admitted, his tone one of deep sadness, "but that's exactly why I can't let you sink any deeper."

Shizuo gave him a confused look, not understanding what the flea was trying to say.

"You might end up dragging me down with you," Izaya answered cryptically.

Shizuo snorted at the confusing comment and turned around, no longer wanting to look at the man whose mere presence would've set him off in the past. "Go home, Izaya," he said, sounding exhausted.

"I will, but after we get something to eat," Izaya said and then forced himself to grab Shizuo by the arm. His fingers were twitching and he almost relinquished his hold when Shizuo turned to him, looking both angry and annoyed at the same time, but he held on, unwilling to admit that Shizuo still scared him and that the man's mere presence was almost enough to trigger a panic attack.

"You can barely stand being in my presence," Shizuo remarked as if guessing what Izaya was thinking. "It's all my fault," he then added brokenly. "You used to be doing much better before I went after you. I can't believe that I was so stupid as to fall into Adabashi's trap."

Izaya laughed, hoping to hide the nervousness he was feeling at being so close to the beast of his nightmares. "You were never that smart to begin with," he said and started pulling Shizuo in the direction of the door. Shizuo wasn't really fighting it, but it was still pretty obvious that the blond wasn't looking forward to spending any more time with him. It wasn't that Izaya liked the idea either, but Shizuo was looking so weak and pathetic that it pissed him off to know that someone who looked so miserable could ever have defeated him. Besides, he couldn't allow Shizuo to waste away before the idiot helped him with his problem. Afterwards... well, Izaya didn't really want to think that far into the future. He'd always made plans, but doing such a thing seemed exhausting when just going through the day was hard enough.

"I'm not hungry," Shizuo finally said when they were in front of the hospital and Izaya was calling for a cab.

Izaya turned to him, giving him an annoyed look. "Do I look like I care? There was that one thing I didn't consent to either, but did you care?"

Shizuo flinched at Izaya's words and turned his head in the other direction, knowing that he couldn't win if the insect set his mind on something.

"You think I don't know what you're doing?" Izaya said and pocketed his phone.

"I don't k-know what you mean."

"You're starving yourself because you feel guilty over what happened to Kasuka. I know how that idiotic brain of yours works better than you do," Izaya said with a sigh. "Trust me, it won't make you feel any less guilty."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Shizuo muttered without even looking at Izaya. It was true that guilt was a big part of it, but that wasn't the main reason. Don't think about it, Shizuo reminded himself as he ran a shaky hand over his face. Just don't think about it.

Seeing that Shizuo was being his usual idiotic self, Izaya decided that it was best to just shut up for a while, at least until they arrived at the restaurant. His leg hurt pretty badly, but that wasn't enough to stop him from doing what needed to be done. After all, a breathing Shizuo meant the opportunity to heal and he wasn't about to let that chance slip through his fingers just because the blond suddenly felt that life was too painful. Luckily, the taxi arrived a couple of minutes later which meant a bit of respite for his poor injured leg. Seeing how Shizuo was just standing there, Izaya pushed him inside the car and then got in, only shooting the beast a glare before turning his head away and looking out the window.

They spent the time it took to get to the restaurant in silence, neither of them really looking forward to eating a meal together like they weren't enemies who had done terrible things to one another. They had broken and destroyed each other and the only thing left for them to do was to pick up the broken pieces and try to move forward, even if that meant starting by having a meal with their archenemy.

"Here," Izaya said and went in, Shizuo following after him like an obedient puppy. He almost smiled as he imagined a couple of ears on top of Shizuo's head, but he quickly pushed that thought aside and then started looking around for the waiter who was going to give them the corner table if it was available.

"Orihara-san, it's good to see you again," the man greeted him with a bow. "The usual, I assume?"

"Yes please," Izaya answered and then follow the man who led him to his table. "Sit down, Shizu-chan," he then added once he noticed that the blond was just standing there, looking worried.

"This place looks expensive," Shizuo grumbled since there was no way that he could afford to order anything there.

"Sit down," Izaya repeated, letting all the annoyance he felt seep into his voice. He then turned his attention to the waiter who was waiting to see if they needed anything before he gave them some time to decide on what they wanted to order. "I'll have the bitterest food you have and he'll have the sweetest dessert."

The man looked surprised, but he quickly hid it by bowing his head. "Understood."

Izaya then waited for the man to leave before turning to Shizuo who for some reason was looking even paler than before. "I assumed that would be something you'd like. You can order something else if you wish."

"It's f-fine," Shizuo replied in a shaky voice before taking a deep breath. He ignored Izaya's suspicious look and picked up the menu and opened it just to have something to do that didn't involve staring at the floor.

"You should probably order some food too," Izaya then added, his frown deepening when he noticed that Shizuo's hands were slightly trembling.

"The dessert is enough," Shizuo assured him, his eyes glued to the menu but not really seeing anything written on it.

"Suit yourself," Izaya mumbled as he placed his right elbow on the table and then rested his chin on his palm, his eye glued to Shizuo as he tried to figure out what was wrong with the beast besides the usual stuff. A few minutes later the waiter was back with what looked a slice of chocolate and caramel cake and Izaya could see that the blond was not happy at the sight even though anything sweet should've been enough to put the idiotic beast in a better mood. "Eat," Izaya ordered, his eye narrowing slightly when he saw the trembling in Shizuo's hand increase as the man picked up the spoon, took some cake and then brought it to his mouth, finally parting his lips and chewing it but not before taking a few deep breaths, as though the simple act of eating was pure torture. "Is it not to your taste?"

"It's great," Shizuo lied and then forced himself to swallow. He tried to keep it in, he really did, but a wave of nausea hit him and he found himself bringing a hand to his mouth and standing up so quickly that he ended up startling Izaya whose eye had gone wide in shock at the unexpected reaction. He tore his eyes away from the confused flea and then staggered towards the waiter, barely managing to request that he'd be shown the way to the bathroom without puking all over the guy's black uniform. Luckily, the man realized that the situation was urgent so he quickly led him there, Shizuo rushing straight into one of the stalls where he finally threw up the cake he'd forced himself to swallow. He dry heaved for at least a couple of minutes, his eyes watering as he kept shuddering in disgust. Once his stomach settled he staggered out of the stall and went straight for the sink where he rinsed his mouth as best as he could and then splashed some water on his face. He was just about to turn the faucet off and go back to Izaya when he heard a voice that made the blood in his veins freeze and his body shudder in disgust all over again.

"I never expected to run into you here," Kuro said as he grabbed a fistful of bleached hair and pushed Shizuo into the nearest stall.

The first instinct Shizuo had was to crush the man's skull against the wall, but the utter fear this man instilled in him because of how easily he could kill his entire family thwarted that impulse and left him defenseless, just like that time in the warehouse. They were both around the same height and build, but that still didn't stop Shizuo from feeling really small and powerless, especially when Kuro was pressing on his head, forcing him to sit down after the man lowered the toilet's lid with his foot. Panic set in and he tried to stand up, but Kuro punched him hard in the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs. Normally, he wouldn't have felt it, but he hadn't slept or eaten in days and the simple act of walking around was a chore in itself.

"We were interrupted last time, so how about we finish now?" Kuro asked as he caressed Shizuo's head in a mockery of care before pulling his hand back and proceeding to work on unbuckling his belt. He was just about to lower his zipper when someone kicked the door in and he found himself stumbling forward, half landing into Shizuo's lap.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Izaya growled the question in what could only be described as pure anger.

Kuro pushed himself to a standing position and then turned around, his mind set on crushing the idiot who had just dared to mess with him. "You should've minded your―" he started and then suddenly stopped when he recognized the man in front of him. "You're Orihara Izaya, aren't you? I thought that was you with Shizuo at the table, but I couldn't be sure." That was because he'd seen the man around but had never spoken to him. "Ah, I see now," he then added when he realized that he'd just messed with someone else's prey. Everyone knew that Orihara Izaya's life goal was to make Heiwajima Shizuo's life a living hell and the last thing Kuro wanted was to anger the Information Broker. "I think I'll go now," he said and fixed his belt before walking out of the stall and heading for the door.

Izaya just stood there, hands balled into fists and breathing heavily as he continued to stare at the trembling blond who looked more like a rabbit than a beast.

"I'm f-fine," Shizuo lied yet again and then flinched when Izaya banged his fist against the wooden door.

"What did he do to you?" Izaya asked through gritted teeth.

"Nothing," Shizuo quickly answered, suddenly feeling really ashamed that Izaya had seen him looking so pathetic.

Momentarily forgetting about his leg injury, Izaya rushed out of the bathroom, caught up to Kuro who was trying to fix his suit, flicked open his switchblade and slammed the taller man against the wall, his whole body shaking with anger even though he couldn't understand why. "What did you do to him?" he hissed as he pushed the blade deeper into the other man's neck, feeling as though he could barely breathe with how angry he was. The most disturbing thing was that he didn’t even know why he was getting so angry over seeing Shizuo looking so broken. He should’ve laughed and rejoiced at the sight, and yet all he wanted to do was to crush to pieces the man before him.

"I don't see why that's any of your business," Kuro replied as he too flicked open his switchblade and pushed it against the Informant's stomach.

"It is my business since I was the one who hired you to break Shizu-chan in the first place," Izaya explained, a disturbing smile now adorning his face.

Kuro returned the smile as he pulled back his switchblade. "In that case, I'll be happy to tell you all about it. Better yet, I can send you the video we took and you can see for yourself."

Reluctantly, Izaya pulled back his hand as well but kept the switchblade open, struggling to not thrust it into the man's heart. "I gave you the abort code, so why are you still bothering Shizu-chan?"

"You can't blame a man for trying to get Ikebukuro's strongest to submit," Kuro said with a shrug as he took out his phone. "Where should I send the video to?"

"Here," Izaya said as he showed him the screen of his phone.

Kuro nodded and proceeded to type the email address. "There, sent."

"Now delete it from your phone, as well as all the other copies you might have made," Izaya ordered.

Kuro pouted but nodded anyway. "Okay, deleted. Now you have the only copy since the video was only on my phone."

"Don't bother Shizuo again," Izaya hissed as he turned around, but he ended up stopping when he heard Kuro speak again.

"I admit that going after Heiwajima Shizuo after you canceled the job was a mistake, but if you threaten me again, Orihara-san, I will make you wish you had never been born," Kuro warned before he turned around and left.

Izaya's whole body shook with fury, and even though he badly wanted to go after the man and make him understand what a stupid mistake it had been to threaten him, he chose to go back to the bathroom. Once there, he found Shizuo in the same spot he'd left him, the beast looking like he was one step away from crumbling to pieces. "What did he do to you?" he hissed as he grabbed Shizuo by the chin and forced him to look into his eye. As expected, Shizuo's answer was that nothing had happened, but Izaya could no longer believe him. It didn't matter though; the video on his phone would provide answers to all the questions he had regarding that day.

Chapter 99: Burden of Truth

With Shizuo looking so pale, Izaya didn't think that leaving him alone was a good idea, especially when there were a million scenarios going through his head about what might have happened. Shizuo wasn't saying anything, but now that Izaya knew what to look for, he could recognize that look of shame the beast could not hide very well. Even as he took Shizuo out of the restaurant and into a cab, Izaya still couldn't understand why he was so angry, but he pushed that aside for the moment and focused on the blond who looked like he was one step away from breaking into a million pieces before his very eyes.

At first, Izaya was going to take Shizuo home, but he soon changed his mind when he realized that bringing him to his apartment would be a far better choice. To his surprise, Shizuo didn't seem to care about what was happening around him, mocha eyes staring blankly out the window as though Shizuo was doing his best to not think about anything. Izaya knew that look since he'd been there himself more times than he could count: it was the look of someone who could no longer deal with how cruel reality could be. It was only when the cab stopped and Izaya grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the car that Shizuo finally seemed to react.

"I need to go back... to the hospital," Shizuo said as his eyes darted around the place, looking confused.

"Later," Izaya whispered in an uncharacteristic soft voice and forced himself to wrap an arm around Shizuo's waist so that he could lead him inside the building. His recent trauma involving both Shizuo and Adabashi was still too fresh in his mind, but the way Shizuo looked so helpless made it easier for Izaya to touch him and just be around him.

"But Kasuka―"

"I left Celty a message and told her to go watch over him," Izaya lied. To his surprise, Shizuo remained silent after that, the pathetic excuse for a beast that he was taking to his apartment appearing to be one step away from shutting down. He'd had a feeling this whole time that Shizuo was not doing well, but it wasn't until the incident in the restaurant's bathroom that he came to realize just how broken the beast really was. Izaya was still angry. He still didn't know why. He also couldn't understand why he was taking care of Shizuo instead of letting him drown in misery by himself, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that he hated the too human expression he had seen on Shizuo's face when he'd pushed open that door and found him looking so scared. That also didn't make any sense, especially when the idiot could've easily bashed that bastard's head in.

And shit, his leg hurt so much that he could barely think but at least he was in front of the door, struggling to push the key into the lock. "Almost there," he said, more to himself than to Shizuo since he couldn't wait to just sit down and get the pressure off the injured leg. "Finally!" he exclaimed in relief once he unlocked the door and limped inside. He quickly closed the door and then led Shizuo to the couch, the blond pretty much collapsing on it as soon as Izaya let him go. Izaya wanted nothing more than to rest as well, but there was one more thing he needed to do before that.

"Take this," he ordered and shoved two sleeping pills into Shizuo's mouth before he forced a plastic bottle into the man's almost limp hand. "Drink the water." He sighed tiredly when he saw the idiot look at the bottle as though it was his first time seeing one. "You can't eat right now, I get that, but you should at least be able to take these two pills." Finally, it looked like his words registered in the blond's brain because Shizuo raised the bottle to his lips and struggled to swallow the two pills. "Don't throw up," Izaya warned as he took the bottle from Shizuo's trembling fingers.

He then stood up and made his way to the desk, hoping that the pills would soon kick in and knock Shizuo out. He knew that giving sleeping pills to someone who hadn't eaten or slept in days was a terrible idea, but he had a video to watch and he didn't want to get interrupted. Swallowing nervously, he sat down in his desk chair and opened the laptop, all the while hating that everything he was about to see would be his fault even if the victim was the man who had broken him first. Back then, Shizuo's betrayal had hurt more than he ever thought it would and that's why he had ended up retaliating so viciously. The fact that Shizuo had also taken Celty's head didn't help either. "Shizu-chan?" he asked, and when he didn't get an answer, he knew that the beast had fallen asleep.

Now that he could watch the video in peace, he opened the laptop, copied the video on it and then took out the headphones from one of his desk's drawers. He put them on, took a deep breath and allowed his finger to just hover over the button for a few minutes while he gathered the courage to finally play the video.

It started with Kuro pushing what looked like a slightly drugged Shizuo into a chair before the man introduced himself. Just as instructed, Kuro told Shizuo that he had two options, but then things took a really ugly turn and Izaya couldn't help but grit his teeth in anger when Kuro mentioned that he'd gotten Shizuo's parents involved. "Kuro, you bastard," he hissed the name and vowed to find a way to make that asshole pay for not sticking to the original plan which only involved drugging Shizuo. Izaya didn't hold his breath when the video reached the part where Shizuo had to choose; after all, the answer was pretty obvious seeing how the beast was still alive. Nor did he find it shocking when two of the men there started hitting him. What he did find surprising though was that they didn't appear to be annoyed that Shizuo didn't react much and instead seemed to brush off most of the blows he was receiving like they were nothing.

Kuro seemed preoccupied with his phone, the man looking quite bored while the other two were talking about random things like sports and movies even while one of them was filming. It went on for about ten or so minutes, until Kuro pocketed his phone and made his way to Shizuo.

"Did you think it'd be that easy?" Kuro said laughing as he viciously grabbed Shizuo by the jaw and forced him to look into his eyes. "The guys just wanted to blow off some steam, so I let them, but now it's my turn, and I'm going to take every little thing that makes you who you are and rip it apart. You think you're some top dog, huh?" Smirking, he released the blond's jaw and backhanded him hard across the face. "On your knees, bitch!"

Even through the screen, Izaya could see that Shizuo's eyes were burning with fury as he growled at the man, his muscles tense and looking as though he might attack at any moment. Kuro clearly did not know how volatile the beast was if he dared to treat Ikebukuro's strongest like that. Even with drugs coursing through his veins, Izaya had no doubts that Shizuo could still do some damage.

"What? You want to hit me back? Go ahead! Show me just how strong you are!" Kuro taunted before he raised his foot and kicked Shizuo hard in the chest, sending him crashing to the floor.

Just as Izaya had expected, Shizuo stood up, his hands balled into fists and looking like he was really struggling to not attack. Funny enough, Shizuo had allowed his archenemy to treat him much worse than that, but as he looked at the screen, Izaya finally realized that no matter how much they hurt each other, it was still better than allowing someone else to humiliate them. Izaya too knew that he would much rather get his head bashed in by Shizuo than by a stranger. He couldn't explain why that was; perhaps it didn't even matter. What he knew though was that the two of them had tried to destroy each other for years and that someone else doing it bothered him even if that someone happened to be a guy Izaya himself had hired while the wounds of Shizuo's betrayal were still fresh and he'd acted more on impulse than anything else.

"Didn't you hear me? On your knees!" Kuro repeated, the man looking completely relaxed even though he was obviously playing with fire.

Izaya waited with bated breath, knowing how hard it would be for the beast to follow such an order. It had taken Shizuo months until the beast finally got on his knees and apologized for that night, and that was in front of someone he'd badly hurt. He could see it happening though, knowing how much Shizuo loved his family. Then it did, and even though he'd expected it, Izaya's eye still went wide at the scene.

"Go get it," Kuro told one of his men who went out of the warehouse and then came back a couple of minutes later with two boxes. Smirking, he took one of them and proceeded to open it while the other guy did the same with the second box.

Shizuo kept his head down, most likely too embarrassed by the position he was forced to stay in to even look at the man.

"I like to do my homework before I proceed with a job, so you can say that I know a thing or two about you."

Izaya couldn't even begin to guess what was in those boxes, so he was more than a little bit surprised and slightly appalled at the sight once their contents were revealed.

"I heard you like sweets," Kuro said and dumped a slice of cake into a dog bowl.

That's when Shizuo's head snapped up, his shocked expression matching that of Izaya.

"Eat, dog," Kuro said as he placed the bowl in front of Shizuo. When Shizuo continued to just stare at him in disbelief, Kuro slapped him across the face, the whole thing making the other four men, including the one who was filming, burst into laughter, the camera shaking for a good minute before the guy finally calmed down.

"I don't think he gets the situation he's in, boss," one of them said as he handed Kuro a leash.

Old Izaya might've found the situation to be somewhat amusing and he might've even praised the man for coming up with such an idea, but current Izaya was more than a little bit disgusted by the scene.

"You're going to have to decide what's more important to you: your family or your dignity," Kuro said as he crouched down in front of Shizuo and proceeded to lock the collar around the man's neck once he figured that the blond wouldn't fight back. He then straightened himself before he raised his right foot and stepped on the leash, forcing Shizuo to bend forward until his face was nearly touching the slice of cake. "Eat."

Shizuo appeared to have frozen, most likely too shocked and embarrassed by the situation to get his muscles to move.

"I won't ask again," Kuro said and this time he bent down and dumped the slice of cake on the ground before throwing the bowl somewhere to his right. "Dogs should know better than to disobey. Then again, you're not a dog, you're just a bitch." Once again, Shizuo wasn't reacting, so Kuro ran two of his fingers through the slice of cream-covered cake and brought them to Shizuo's mouth. "Lick them clean and I might just forgive you."

Izaya ended up pausing the video so that he could get his breathing back under control. Kuro's words raised a million red flags in his head and he would be surprised if it didn't lead to what he thought it would. He considered not watching the rest and simply deleting the video, but the need to know what he'd done was too great and in the end he went back to playing it.

"At least have a taste," Kuro said as he wiped the tips of his fingers on Shizuo's lips, the action making the shocked beast shudder in disgust. Seeing that Shizuo was just staring at him in disbelief, he slapped him again, trying to get him to react. "Do you really want your parents to die?"

The threat seemed to work because Shizuo slowly opened his mouth, his expression turning into one of utter disgust when Kuro thrust his fingers inside.

"Lick," the man repeated as he pulled on the leash, forcing his fingers deeper into Shizuo's mouth.

Izaya covered his eye with the left hand, trying to push back the nausea threatening to surface. The chocking sounds were a pretty good indication that Kuro was thrusting his fingers in and out Shizuo's mouth, the man clearly doing his best to humiliate the one he'd been hired to break. As much as he hated the guy, Izaya had to admit that the bastard was pretty good at doing his fucked up job.

Izaya only lowered his hand once the noises stopped, but a mere glimpse at Shizuo's mortified face was enough to almost trigger a panic attack since it reminded him so much of himself.

Kuro sighed. "You're so bad at it, but don't worry, you're gonna become a real pro by the time we're done with you."

Shizuo looked horrified by the implication, and so did Izaya.

"You're not gonna bite, are you?" Kuro asked as he proceeded to unbuckle his belt.

Izaya paused the video so quickly that he nearly broke the button on the keyboard, his breathing turning erratic at the thought of what was going to happen next. What has already happened, he corrected himself as he walked away from his desk for a bit, struggling to breathe. His feet led him to Shizuo and as he stared at the man's face, he prayed that he was wrong and that what he assumed would happen next did not happen. He prayed because as much as he still hated Shizuo, he never wished something like that to happen to anyone, not anymore, especially not to the idiot who was willing to sacrifice his life just to save him.

Maybe nothing happened, he thought, almost hopeful since there was no way that Shizuo would've been able to act so unaffected after something like that. Surely Shizuo would've killed him if something had happened. Realizing that he could breathe once again without feeling like someone was chocking him to death, he walked to the desk, turned the laptop around and played the video from where he left off.

A few seconds in, Shizuo laughed, the sound startling Izaya since that was the last reaction he expected from the man.

"What's so funny?" Kuro asked, his hands stopping just as he was about to lower the zipper on his pants.

"I think that I kind of deserve this," Shizuo answered in a really sad voice as he continued to stare at the floor, "but it's still too fucked up. I don't think I can do it. "

Izaya felt his heart break into a million pieces.

Kuro snorted as he lowered the zipper. "You don't really have a choice." He then pulled out his length and grabbed Shizuo by the hair, bringing him closer to his groin area.

Izaya brought a hand to his mouth, fighting to urge to empty the contents of his stomach. Unlike the previous time, he couldn't close his eye, nor could he keep it completely open. He was only half watching what was happening on the screen, at least until Kuro's dick touched Shizuo's lips and his eye went wide when the beast he knew better than anyone else pushed the bastard so hard that Kuro fell on his ass.

Shizuo tried to stand up, but three men jumped on him, two capturing one arm each and the third one grabbing him in a chokehold.

"You shouldn't have done that." Kuro's voice was chilling, the amusement from before completely gone.

Shizuo was struggling to free himself, the panic Izaya could recognize so well finally kicking in.

"I should chop off your hand for doing that," Kuro said as he pushed the blade into Shizuo's wrist and made a cut, luckily avoiding the veins there, "but I won't, since the guy who hired us asked us not to mutilate you."

"I'd rather you do that though," Shizuo said, the panic quite obvious from the way his voice was trembling. "It beats sucking your filthy dick."

Kuro grabbed the second phone from the guy who was filming and showed it to Shizuo. Izaya couldn't see what was on it, but clearly it involved Shizuo's parents since the beast ended up begging Kuro to stop while struggling to free himself. Unfortunately, with the drug coursing through his veins, the three men holding him from moving too much and the threat of his parents getting killed, Shizuo could do nothing to get out of there unharmed.

"Keep his mouth open," Kuro ordered and Izaya's fingers tightened around the laptop when the guy keeping Shizuo in a chokehold pushed his thumb and index finger into Shizuo's cheeks, forcing his mouth open.

That's when Izaya lost it and threw the laptop across the room, the screen flying further away once it hit the ground and the device broke in two. His legs gave out from under him and he collapsed on the floor, screaming.

"What's wrong?" a still half-asleep Shizuo asked as he pushed himself to a sitting position, woken up by the racket. When the flea didn't answer, Shizuo made his way to him, his eyes momentarily falling on the broken laptop before settling back on Izaya. The insect was sitting on the floor, trembling fingers covering his lowered head. Confused, Shizuo looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. He looked back at the laptop, then at the desk, noticing that there was nothing on it besides a box of napkins, a lamp, some pencils and Izaya's phone. "Bad news?" he asked and grabbed the phone.

Izaya heard the sound of something being picked up from his desk and his head snapped up, his eye going wide when he realized that he'd forgotten to delete the video from the phone. "No! Don't watch that!" he screeched and tried to snatch the phone from Shizuo's hand, only to freeze with his hand in the air when the beast's expression turned from worried into what could only be described as pure unadulterated fury.

"You saw it," Shizuo growled, his brain somehow making the connection once he realized that whatever it was, it had something to do with him since the look in Izaya's eye was not one he'd ever seen before. His eyes moved to the phone's screen and he opened it, his vision going red once he saw that the recently accessed file was a video called Heiwajima Shizuo. He played it for only a couple of seconds to confirm what it was before he crushed the phone in his hand, grabbed Izaya by the neck and threw him on the desk. "You shouldn't have fucking watched it!" he shouted in anger.

On instinct, Izaya reached for the lamp and banged it hard against the side of Shizuo's head, hoping to get him to release him. It didn't work, the whole thing further angering the beast who ripped it from his fingers and threw it across the room. "I h-had to k-know," Izaya stuttered in terror as he fought to dislodge Shizuo's hand from around his neck once the beast started squeezing harder.

"No, you didn't! I told you to drop it! I told you that nothing happened. Why the fuck couldn't you just listen to me for once?" Shizuo roared. "Did you enjoy it?" he then added before Izaya could even answer, his lips set into a disturbing smile. "Oh, I guess you didn't, seeing how you broke the laptop. Were you upset that he didn't get to finish because of yours or Adabashi's call?"

"I d-didn't t-think he'd―"

"You didn't think what?? You didn't think that he'd do something like that? Don't you fucking dare lie to my face! At least have the balls to admit what you did!" Shizuo took a deep breath and then ran his free hand over his face, trying to calm down. Izaya let out something akin to a sob, but it pissed Shizuo off even more instead of making him feel guilty. "Shut up! I'm done apologizing to you. I kept telling myself that I deserved it for what I did to you, and you know what? I still think that, but my brother didn't deserve to get tortured for months for the sake of your revenge. You should've done this from the start if this was what you wanted! Tell me, Izaya, has your thirst for revenge finally been satisfied? Have you had enough?" To his surprise, the nails digging into his arm retreated and the flea went limp in his hand, Izaya staring into his eyes while tears streamed down his face.

"I'm sorry," Izaya uttered brokenly.

Shizuo was so startled by the apology that he pulled his hand back, releasing Izaya. He took a step back, his legs going weak at the knees after hearing those words because they were something he never thought he would hear from the man who had vowed to make his life a living hell.

"I w-was hurt by y-your actions," Izaya said in a trembling voice as he pushed himself off the desk and then half sat on it, not only because of his leg but also because he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. "I felt b-betrayed."

Shizuo almost told him to shut the fuck up, but the look of regret on Izaya's face stopped him from doing so.

"I w-was scared. I couldn't t-think straight," Izaya reluctantly admitted. "I just wanted you to no longer be a danger," he revealed, this time in a much steadier voice as he gripped the edge of the desk tighter just to have something to hold on to. He still couldn’t believe that Shizuo had not said a word about it, but Izaya assumed that was because the idiot was dealing with it in his own way, which usually meant ignoring the problem for as long as he could.

"I won't deny that I imagined far worse things that I could do to you, but I never went through with any of them because I didn't want to make the same mistake you did. I came to realize, after Kasuka, that things like that are so horrible that I couldn't even wish them upon my worst enemy." A growl reached his ears when Kasuka’s name was mentioned, and Izaya had to take a deep breath and remind himself that he was no longer in that sort of danger and that Shizuo wouldn't hurt him any worse than perhaps break a few of his bones in a fit of rage. Even after going through something like that, Shizuo had pushed down all the hatred and anger he felt towards him and pretended to be fine, still treating him nicely when he should’ve at least punched him once in the face. The creature before him was no longer a beast, but human, much like Izaya himself who could never be a god no matter how much he wished it so.

As for Shizuo, he was still in shock over the fact that Izaya had apologized. He felt conflicted though, especially now that he could no longer suppress that part of him who loathed Izaya for putting him through something like that. He thought pretending that everything was fine with him would make the pain go away, but that seemed impossible now that Izaya had uncovered the ugly truth of what had happened that day. The shame was too much to bear, and as he thought of Izaya watching that video, he realized that it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Overcome by panic, he turned around and pretty much ran out of the apartment, heading straight for the elevator. Even as he was gasping for air, he took out his phone with trembling fingers and sent Shinra a message, the need to just get away from everything and everyone too strong to suppress any longer.

「 Help me disappear. 」

Chapter 100: The Unnamed Feeling

Izaya woke up to the sound of someone ringing at the door. He was confused for only a second, until the events of the previous day came back to him and he felt sick all over again. He shuddered and ran a shaky hand over his face before he pushed himself to his feet, a small moan of pain slipping past his lips once he took the first step towards the door. He thought it'd be Shinra, so he couldn't have been more surprised when he opened the door and he came face to face with Sawazaki Kotaro, the man obviously looking for him in regards to the incident in which Kadota had been involved. His heart speed up at the thought of talking to the man because he hadn't had any time to come up with a few good lies, not when all he could think about the entire night until finally passing out on the couch was how badly he'd fucked up when it came to Shizuo.

The man stepped inside the apartment, not really bothering to wait for an invitation. "Did something happen?" Sawazaki asked as he took in his surroundings.

Izaya winced, only now remembering that his apartment was a mess. "Nothing that you need to concern yourself with," he replied curtly.

"In that case, I'm going to jump straight to the subject," Sawazaki said as he took out his phone to take notes. "Tell me about the night Kadota Kyouhei was nearly beaten to death."

"Izumii Ran lured me inside that house by telling me that someone had information on Heiwajima Kasuka. Once inside, I was jumped by a man whose face was covered in bandages."

"Who was this man?"

Izaya shrugged. "I have no idea."

Sawazaki rolled his eyes. "Someone tried to kill you and you have no idea who he was or what he wanted?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you," Izaya said, opening the door even further since he had no intention of letting Sawazaki spend any more time in his apartment. "I'll call you if I remember anything."

"I expect you at the police station to give a proper recount of that night's events," Sawazaki announced as he made his way out of the apartment. "As soon as po―"

Izaya didn't bother to hear the rest and instead slammed the door in the man's face, no longer willing to hear another word. All he could think about was that video and Shizuo and how shitty the whole thing was making him feel. Slowly, he made his way to the desk and sat in his chair, body trembling as he kept telling himself that the unnamed feeling that was making it very hard for him to breathe couldn't possibly be what he thought it might be.

He stayed like that, alone with his own thoughts, for hours, until Yuigadokusonmaru started meowing because of how hungry he was. Izaya welcomed the distraction and made his way to the kitchen, thinking that perhaps he should eat something too since he hadn't had a chance to eat the night before. Unfortunately, he recalled the bathroom incident and that was enough to make him nauseous all over again.

Realizing how affected he was, he became angry, almost wishing that he could go back to being the old Izaya who would've laughed at the sight of a scared and hurting beast. Life used to be much easier when he didn't feel like shit because of what had happened to a monster and the brother of said monster. Everything was easier when he was just Orihara Izaya, the Informant, and not someone who had been broken by an idiot who couldn't control his anger. Life was easier when he never would've even thought of apologizing to the beast, let alone actually doing it, and the thought of having changed so much scared him. His fingers tightened around the can he was trying to open and he almost threw it into the wall until he recalled that it was the last one and that the poor cat meowing its heart out would end up starving since he didn't have the energy or the will to go out that day.

Gritting his teeth in anger and frustration, he poured the contents of the can into Yuigadokusonmaru's bowl, washed his hands and then walked out of the kitchen, a small sound of surprise slipping past his lips when he started careening to the right and everything around him started to spin. He struggled to reach the couch, but dark spots quickly formed at the edges of his awareness and he ended up collapsing face down on the floor, his head barely missing the corner of the coffee table. The last thing he thought of as he slipped into unconsciousness was how much he wished that he'd never hired that bastard Kuro.

***

Next time he woke up was sometimes during the night, confused as to how he'd gotten in his bed since he clearly remembered passing out in the living room. Slowly, he stood up and made his way to the door, trying to figure out what was going on. He didn't recall leaving the TV on, which meant that someone else was downstairs, most likely Shinra.

"You finally woke up."

Izaya reached for his switchblade as soon as he heard the unknown voice, only to realize that he didn't have one on him once he went through the pockets of what looked like one of his pajamas. Even so, he approached the rail and looked downstairs, wanting to know who this woman was. "Celty!" he exclaimed in surprise when he saw her looking up at him, his heart speeding up a bit at the sight since she was staring at him with what looked like a mix of worry and anger.

"You should've stayed in bed," Celty admonished as she made her way up the stairs, only to stop when she saw Izaya backing away from her. "Relax, I'm not going to kill you," she said with a sigh and then waited until he calmed down before making her way to him and snaking an arm around his waist. "Well, not yet anyway," she added jokingly when she noticed just how tense he was since he was clearly not a huge fan of touching. She couldn't blame him though, not after what had happened to him.

Izaya couldn't take his eyes away from her face. It was almost hard to believe that such a creature would choose to care for him instead of taking his life, especially after what he'd done to her. "I don't want to go back to bed," he said when he saw her grabbing the handle to open the bedroom door.

"Okay, as you wish," Celty said and helped him down the stairs. "You've been out for a bit over two days, so I'm not really surprised that you're sick of sleeping."

Izaya was so shocked by her words that he nearly slipped and would've tumbled down the stairs if it wasn't for Celty's tight grip on him.

"You weren't answering your phone, so Shinra came to check up on you and then called me when you didn't open the door," Celty explained. "We found you passed out in the living room, running a high fever because your gunshot wound got infected."

"Makes sense," Izaya mumbled as he recalled just how badly his leg hurt once he had woken up that morning. He then waited until Celty helped him sit down on the couch before asking the question that had been bothering him since the moment he opened his eyes. "How's Shizu-chan?" When Celty didn't answer, he turned his head, looking confused. "Did something happen?"

Celty didn't know if it was a good idea to answer the question when he was still recovering since she couldn't even begin to guess how he would react, but in the end, she decided to tell him to truth. "Shizuo disappeared."

For a few long seconds, Izaya simply could not breathe. "W-What do you mean?" he finally asked when he found his voice.

"He left a note in Kasuka's hospital room, asking us not to look for him."

Izaya was so shocked that he didn't even know how to react at the news. He never expected Shizuo to run away, but at the same time he could understand since he himself had done it once. Sometimes, everything just hurt too much.

***

After the initial shock wore off, Izaya started looking for Shizuo, his mind set on finding the man and punching him in the face for thinking that he could disappear like that. There were still many things to be told and Izaya refused to believe that Shizuo would never come back. The fact that the man had disappeared should've made him happy, but the only things Izaya felt was anger, frustration and that unnamed feeling he refused to name as the hours turned into days and then into weeks.

He also started going to the hospital to see Kasuka even though he couldn't understand why he felt the need to. Shizuo's parents seemed happy that a friend was visiting their son, the two of them still under the impression that he was a good person who was just trying to help. Izaya would've laughed, if not for the fact that he was dying on the inside. So he started going to the hospital every two days, at first just sitting in the room talking to whoever else was there until Ruri and Celty realized that he had no intention of hurting Kasuka and he was allowed to remain alone with the still sleeping man.

"Today makes is twenty-three days since your brother disappeared," Izaya started, even though Kasuka couldn't hear him, and then sighed in annoyance since he couldn't concentrate because of the huge commotion inside the hospital. Apparently, a fight between gangs had broken out and the idiots didn't die like they were supposed to and instead were sent to the hospital, which led to some of them still fighting once they came back to their senses and saw their enemies lying in hospital beds next to them. "You know, I love humans, but it's really hard to love idiots like the ones outside this room. If I went there, I could probably help, but I don't want to get involved. It's too tiresome."

Even though he often talked to the sleeping Kasuka, he never expected an answer in return, so Izaya nearly jumped out of his skin when the heart monitor went wild and Kasuka suddenly sat up in his bed, the man appearing to be struggling to breathe for a few seconds until terrified eyes turned to him and Kasuka froze, the terror he could read in those eyes one he knew too well.

Izaya stood up slowly and started walking backwards until he hit the wall, thinking that it was best to give Kasuka some space. He considered running out the door and calling one of the nurses, but he knew from experience that a familiar face would be far more helpful in calming down a terrified patient. "I'm not going to hurt you," he started in a soft voice as he raised his hands, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "You're at the hospital. You're safe now. Adabashi is dead. He'll never hurt again."

Unfortunately, what Izaya didn't know was that his presence was only making things worse. Even though he still couldn't see well after being in the dark for so long, Kasuka could recall the man's voice and he was terrified at the thought of being alone with him. He'd betrayed the Informant by telling Adabashi what the man wanted to know and there was no way that Izaya would not punish him for speaking when he should've kept the secret no matter what. His brother and Izaya had nearly died because of him and Kasuka was certain that he would never be able to forgive himself for putting either of them in harm's way.

Izaya, who was watching intently, noticed the shift in Kasuka's eyes as it changed from being scared and confused to being terrified of him when the much too skinny shadow of a freak got over his initial shock and started trembling so badly that it made Izaya worry that the thing before him might just shatter to pieces. "I've been where you are," he started in a gentle voice, hoping to make him understand that he was no threat. "I know how it is to wake up and think that everyone and everything will hurt you. It's so scary that you just want to disappear, but you don't need to be scared anymore. The girls saved you. They saved all of us."

Izaya cursed under his breath, not knowing what else to say to make Kasuka understand that he wasn't going to hurt him. "Look, I'm not mad, okay? I don't blame you for telling that psycho what Shizu-chan did to me. I can't blame you because I know that most humans break sooner or later if they are tortured. To be honest, I'm surprised that you lasted that long. You're pretty amazing," he then added, smiling. "Actually, you know what? I think I'll call Ruri. Is that okay with you?"

A feeling of longing filled his wildly beating heart and Kasuka nodded slowly, hoping that Ruri would still love him now that he no longer was the strong man she used to know. He didn't know if he could ever go back to being the same Heiwajima Kasuka, but he was going to try for her sake. He waited until Izaya walked out the door, the man promising to come back in a few days, and then fell back down on the bed, his body too weak to remain sitting for much longer. He had a feeling that Ruri would get to the hospital quickly, so he didn't have much time to gather the too many pieces that Adabashi had broken and pretend that everything was okay.

As much as he hated the dark, he still closed his eyes, trying to calm down enough to get rid of the tormented expression he'd shown Izaya. He took a few deep breaths (ignoring the pain in his chest from the still healing ribs) and then worked on getting the muscles of his face to relax. What he needed was an emotionless mask to show the world so that the people who loved him wouldn't worry too much about him.

The problem was that there were too many things on his mind, including the fact that so many unexpected events had taken place last time he'd been at Adabashi’s mercy. For starters, Kasuka still couldn't believe that Shizuo was up and walking, but most of all he regretted showing his brother such a pathetic side of him. He knew how much the man loved him and Kasuka had no doubts that Shizuo was blaming himself for what happened. There was also what that psycho had tried to force Shizuo to do, but Izaya appeared to be fine which meant that nothing had happened in the end; or so he assumed, because there was no way that Izaya would've acted so kindly towards him if something had happened.

Time flew as he lay there in bed trying to make sense of things, and before he knew it, Ruri arrived there, the woman actually running towards him as soon as she closed the door behind her. He tried not to flinch at the contact, but he still ended up shuddering when she laid her head on his chest and snaked an arm around his waist. It wasn't that she scared him, but he'd learned to associate touch with pain and after so long of only knowing pain, he'd forgotten what a loving embrace felt like.

"I've missed you," Ruri uttered softly, her voice trembling just a little bit. "I knew that one day you'd come back to me."

Kasuka wanted to tell her that he'd missed her too, but the fear of his voice betraying just how broken he felt kept him from uttering a single sound. It took everything in his power just to maintain the emotionless mask everyone knew, but he hoped that it was enough to put their minds at ease. Instead, he slowly raised his hand and placed it on Ruri's back, wondering if he'd ever be able to use his fingers again since he'd lost count of how many times Adabashi had broken them. At that moment though, all he could do was wait for the doctors to remove the splints before testing them out.

"I know you might not want to hear about Adabashi Kisuke right now, but I just want you to know that he's dead so that you won't have to worry about him anymore," she said in a voice that could not really hide the hatred she felt towards the man. She then raised her head, her eyes locking with those of her beloved. "I killed him slowly and painfully. He died screaming. Do you want to know how I killed him?"

As much as he hated the idea of hearing anything torture-related, he still nodded, if only to make her happy since she seemed so proud of having killed such a monster.

"I cut open his chest," Ruri said as she raised a hand and began to slowly caress Kasuka's cheek. She then waited to see if he was okay with it before continuing. She wasn't stupid enough to believe that her Yuuhei was fine after being tortured for so long, but she also knew that treating him like a broken toy would only make him feel worse. The best thing she could do was to treat him the same way she had always treated him, like the strong man that he was; her man. "That alone made him scream, but he didn't really start losing his mind until I started breaking his ribs and pulling them out one by one."

Despite how much Kasuka wanted to be human, he couldn't find it within his heart to feel sorry for his torturer. No, not a man, a monster, Kasuka reminded himself as he tightened his hold around Ruri's smaller body.

"I don't regret it," Ruri told him since he knew that he might end up worrying about her. "I did in the past whenever I killed people, but I have no regrets when it comes to Adabashi Kisuke. Actually, I do have one. My only regret is that I didn't make him suffer more."

With Ruri in his arms, so warm, so kind and so beautiful, he closed his eyes and rested his chin on top of her head, knowing that she needed the comfort as much as he did.

***

As promised, Izaya showed up a week later, the man smiling as he entered the room even though Kasuka could tell that the Informant was not doing so well. At least now he knew that Izaya wasn't going to slit his throat for telling Adabashi everything, especially after his parents praised him for being such a good friend and coming to visit him every couple of days while he'd been unconscious. Kasuka didn't understand at first why he'd been out for so long, but his father had explained to him that the doctors had decided to do so because he was too injured and they didn't want him to hurt himself if he woke up again and had another panic attack. Kasuka couldn't even remember waking up in the hospital before, but he decided that it was for the best seeing how his mother seemed to burst into tears every time she saw him. If she was like this after one month of watching over him, he could only imagine how crushed she must've felt those first few days.

"I brought you pudding," Izaya said in a conspiratorial tone as he took out the plastic container from inside the pocket of his jacket.

Kasuka thought the man was weird for wearing a jacket in the summer, and even though it was not something new for the Informant, he still couldn't get used to it. His mouth watered at the sight and he swallowed, cursing his broken fingers a million times over when he realized that he wouldn't be able to eat it by himself. At least the splints were coming off in two days, something he both feared and was looking forward to.

"The nurses here are boring, always giving you shitty food, but there's no way I'm letting you starve to death," Izaya said in a singsong voice as he pulled the lid and pushed the plastic spoon inside before taking out some pudding and raising it to Kasuka's mouth. As expected, the too human freak's eyes widened slightly in surprise, the man clearly shocked that Izaya was offering to feed him the pudding. "I won't tell if you won't," he promised and then smiled when Kasuka nodded and finally had a taste of the divine pudding Izaya had gone out of his way to buy since it wasn't the usual cheap stuff Shizuo ate.

And as he remembered Shizuo, Izaya's smile disappeared, that heavy feeling that was making it hard for him to breathe coming back to haunt him as it always did whenever he thought about the man. Still, it was not the time to be thinking about Shizuo, so he shook his head, forced a smile on his face and continued to feed the pudding to Kasuka, all the while wondering how the man before him could look so calm even though there was clearly a storm behind those half-closed eyes.

"Don't worry about the police," Izaya said once he set the empty cup on the small table beside the bed. "I got someone to convince them that 'pressuring you into giving a statement might worsen your already fragile psyche.'"

Kasuka was grateful for the respite since he was tired of having to hear the officer in charge of his case talk about how important it was to catch Adabashi Kisuke. The man didn't know that the sadist was already dead. As far as the police and the whole world knew, he'd somehow escaped by himself. Ruri had also told him that a few reporters were still waiting outside their apartment buildings, which was why she decided to move and asked him to come live with her at least until he got better. He'd almost refused, but the thought of going to live with his parents and seeing his mother cry every day seemed like too much for him to handle when just appearing emotionless took all the energy he had. The fact that he was still not talking wasn't helping matters either.

"Still no news of Shizu-chan," Izaya said after a long pause in which both of them got lost in their own thoughts, "but I promise that I'll find that idiot for you." It was only half the truth. It wasn't only Kasuka who wanted to see Shizuo, but Izaya too. As the days had turned into weeks, Izaya couldn't help but imagine the worst, like the idiot jumping in a river somewhere to escape the agony of being alive. Such thoughts should've made him happy, but that wasn't the case at all. The hole in the pit of his stomach seemed to be growing larger with each passing day, the feeling that he'd made a horrible mistake preventing him from sleeping well at night.

"I'll bring you some rice pudding next time," Izaya said before he turned around, waved him good bye and quickly disappeared from the room, Kasuka suddenly reminding him too much of Shizuo.

***

Another week had passed since he'd seen Kasuka and Izaya was lying on the couch, petting Yuigadokusonmaru and watching TV when he heard someone knock softly on the door. He got up, confused as to whom it could be since it was past midnight and he hadn't been expecting anyone. To his shock, he came face to face with Kasuka, the man just standing there wearing a hoodie and looking at the floor as though he was too afraid to even face him. Not knowing what else to say, Izaya invited him inside, wondering what he was doing there so late at night.

Yuigadokusonmaru ran to Kasuka as soon as the man stepped inside, the little ball of fur jumping in his arms and meowing with joy at finally seeing his owner after such a long time. It would've been a heartwarming moment, if not for the fact that Kasuka didn't appear to be feeling well. As far as Izaya knew, Kasuka had gone home with Ruri soon after he woke up, which was the main reason why the rice pudding he was planning to give Kasuka was still in his fridge, untouched. Ruri hadn't told him where she'd moved and Izaya hadn't tried to find out.

"Take a seat while I get you something to eat," Izaya said and headed for the kitchen. Once there, he took out his phone, typed a message and sent it to Ruri.

「Has something happened between you and Kasu-chan? He just showed up at my door, looking like someone has just drown his puppy or something.」That wasn't exactly true since Kasuka had the usual emotionless mask on, but Izaya had a feeling that something was wrong.

《 He accidentally hit me when I tried to wake him up from a nightmare he was having and he now blames himself for hurting me. He disappeared while I was trying to stop the nosebleed. Thank you for letting me know he's there. 》

「Are you going to come get him or should I call a taxi and take him to your place? I'll need the address for that though.」

《 Let him sleep there tonight, if you don't mind. Seeing my face right now would probably make him feel worse than he's already feeling. 》

「Alright.」

《 If you hurt him, I'm going to kill you. 》

「           凸(`△´＃)          」

《 Don't say I didn't warn you. 》

Sighing, Izaya pocketed the phone, grabbed the rice pudding from the fridge and made his way back to the living room. He then placed the container on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. "I'm sure you have your reasons to show up at my door this late at night, but I won't ask why, so eat that and then get some sleep. Or you can watch TV all night, your choice. I'll be at my desk if you need anything," he said and stood up, not failing to notice how badly Kasuka's hands were trembling as the man petted the cat.

As he passed the hunched form sitting on the couch and seemingly trying to make itself as small as possible, Izaya finally admitted to himself what that unnamed feeling bothering him for weeks now really was: guilt.

He absolutely hated it.

Chapter 101: Advent

Kasuka couldn't understand why his feet had led him to Izaya's apartment, but he was glad that he'd gone there instead of going to his parents' house and scaring them, or walking through the streets and risk being recognized. He felt really bad about hurting Ruri, especially since she was taking care of him even though she didn't have to. He had no doubts that Ruri loved him, but he was still too shaken by the nightmare he'd had and he didn't want to be anywhere near her if he fell asleep again. As for Izaya, the man was typing away at his laptop, clearly not joking when he said that he had work to do. He'd always believed that Izaya was a pretty horrible person, but the man had proven to be capable of kindness too, especially with how considerate he'd acted towards him ever since he'd woken up in the hospital, scared and confused.

Then there was Shizuo who had gone missing, leaving only a note in which he told their parents that he needed some time alone and asking them not to look for him. Kasuka later found out that they considered going to the police, but in the end decided not to when Izaya told them that he would find their son. His mother was grateful for the help, but his father maintained his position that if Shizuo needed a break, then he should be allowed to take one. Kasuka wanted to see his brother too, but at the same time he was afraid that Shizuo would never see him again as the strong little brother he could count on and instead always have that imagine of the pathetic sobbing mess Adabashi had turned him into.

Just thinking about it made him sad so he picked up the plastic container, pulled the lid and dug into the pudding, his eyes nearly rolling in his head at how tasty it was. Adabashi had barely fed him anything, the sadist nearly starving him to death on top of nearly torturing him to death. Kasuka remembered clearly how he'd lost hope of ever being rescued, which was the main reason why he could no longer stand the torture and ended up telling Adabashi everything. It had gotten so bad that death seemed like sweet relief from all the pain and suffering he had endured for what seemed like forever because he had no notion of time since he was being kept in perpetual darkness. Adabashi didn't have a torture schedule either, the monster making his way to the basement to inflict more pain whenever he felt like it.

Yuigadokusonmaru meowed, the sound bringing Kasuka back to the present. Grateful for the distraction, he placed the pudding back on the coffee table, picked up the cat and brought it to his chest, the little fluffy ball snuggling deeper into his arms and immediately starting to purr. He then picked up the pudding again and continued to eat, keeping his eyes glues to the TV so that he could hopefully avoid drowning in dark memories and even darker thoughts.

Even though he was indeed working, Izaya kept throwing Kasuka glances to see if the man was alright, especially since he couldn't understand how someone who had been tortured for such a long time could keep that emotionless mask on. The man was obviously not alright, but it was still impressive, the whole thing making Izaya even more interested in Kasuka than he was before. He also wondered if Kasuka would continue to watch TV until morning or fall asleep, a question that was answered no more than three hours later when he heard soft snoring coming from the direction of the couch. He would've laughed, but he didn't want to wake him up so instead he covered his mouth with his hands and kept them there until the impulse finally disappeared and he sighed softly, wondering how the hell Kasuka trusted him to fall asleep in his apartment after all the shitty things he'd done to him.

"You're too much of a good person, Kasu-chan," Izaya uttered as he reclined back in his chair and raised his arms to stretch his stiff body. He'd been working a lot lately to make up for the lost time, but also because it served as a good distraction for all the dark thoughts often going through his head, thoughts that involved a once terrifying beast turning human. Time to get back to work, Izaya reminded himself as soon as he realized that he was thinking about Shizuo again. He was just about to open an email when someone started pounding on the door, the sound startling both he and a half-asleep Kasuka who pushed himself to a sitting position before turning to Izaya who gave him a confused look and stood up, slowly making his way to the door even though the pounding made it seem like it was urgent.

"Who is it?" Izaya asked as he approached the door.

"Open up, flea!"

Izaya's whole body froze on the spot, hand in the air just as he was reaching for the handle. "S-Shizu-chan?" Izaya asked in a trembling voice, finding it hard to believe that the idiot would just show up at his door like that after disappearing without a trace for so long.

"Yeah, now open the goddam door!"

"Where have you been, you idiot?" Izaya shouted as he pressed the handle and yanked the door open, his eye widening at the sight of the surprisingly healthy-looking blond.

"Where's Kasuka?" Shizuo growled and pushed Izaya out of the way, then pretty much ran to Kasuka who appeared to be shocked more than anything else. "Are you okay?" he asked in a soft voice as he crouched in front of his little brother and took trembling scarred hands in his own, his heart breaking at the sight of his precious little brother looking so vulnerable.

Kasuka swallowed nervously and then closed his eyes, trying to put the emotionless mask back on. However, that seemed to turn into an impossible feat when Shizuo pulled him in his arms, his brother's hand running up and down his spine in a soothing motion.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't here when you woke up," Shizuo apologized in a pained voice as he squeezed his little brother tighter. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," he then added, his voice breaking and tears gathering in his eyes now that he finally had Kasuka in his arms again.

Kasuka fought with everything he had to not burst into tears, and as much as he wished to tell Shizuo that he didn't need to apologize because it wasn't his fault, he couldn't, not when he was barely holding back the torrent of emotions threatening to bring down the dam he'd carefully built around them. Instead, he raised his arms and hugged Shizuo back, knowing that his brother would understand his feelings even if he didn't express them.

"Where have you been?" Izaya asked again, his anger increasing as the seconds ticked by.

Knowing that he could no longer pretend that Izaya wasn't there, Shizuo released Kasuka and stood up, his eyes narrowing into slits and his upper lip curling into a snarl. "What you playing at now, flea?"

"What...?" Izaya asked, sounding confused.

"Are you thinking of using my brother for one of your schemes again?" Shizuo continued as he made his way to Izaya and only stopped once he was standing in front of him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya replied, his eye wide as he continued to stare at the man.

"Don't fuck with me, flea!" Shizuo roared as he fisted a hand into Izaya's T-shirt, the action making the smaller man shudder and try to pull away. Shizuo released him, reminding himself that no matter how much of an asshole Izaya was, the man was still traumatized because of what he'd done to him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya hissed in annoyance as he glowered at the idiot before him, almost surprised to see Shizuo looking so well since the man was a wreck last time he'd seen him. "Kasu-chan just showed up at my door and I invited him in, gave him some rice pudding and told him he can crash on my couch tonight if he wants to."

"Why would my brother ever come to your apartment willingly? What have you told him to get him to come here?"

"You know what, Shizu-chan? Go to hell!" Izaya said before he turned around and stomped in the direction of his desk, suddenly feeling the need to sit down. "You can't just come in here after disappearing for over a month and then acting as though nothing has changed."

Shizuo continued to glower at him, still not trusting Izaya even though he clearly recalled the man apologizing last time they'd seen each other.

"I often visited your brother while he was in the hospital, and when he woke up, I instead of you, the big brother who claims to want to protect him but who chose to abandon him and ran away, was there to calm him down." Izaya then took a deep breath, trying to calm down before he said something he might end up regretting. "I was the one who sneaked pudding past the nurses for him, not you. I was there, you weren't!"

Shizuo's eyes went wide, Izaya's words taking him by surprise. It wasn't that he hadn’t wanted to be there for his brother, but he couldn't when all he could think about was the humiliation he'd suffered at Kuro's hands and how that was still nothing compared to what he put Izaya through. "I'm here now," he muttered and moved closer to the desk, almost feeling the need to see the hatred in that brown-red eye to remind him that he was a monster and not the weak thing he'd been turned into inside that warehouse.

"Shizu-chan..."

"What?"

"Where's your brother?" Izaya asked in a worried voice as he stood up.

Shizuo whipped his head around, his heart speeding up when he realized that he hadn't even noticed that Kasuka was no longer there.

"I'll check upstairs," Izaya said as he ran in the direction of the stairs. "You check downstairs."

Kasuka was already out of the building by the time the two even realized he was gone, their raised voices and the heavy atmosphere pushing him to run away since he felt as though he could no longer breathe with the two looking as though they might try to kill each other at any moment. Angry people made him nervous, even if said people happened to be his brother and the man who had been so kind to him earlier that night. Anger reminded him of broken bones and switchblade slashes, of violent blows to the body and sadistic laughter.

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

Kasuka quickly bowed his head in apology and continued to walk, but that didn't seem to be enough to appease the man who ran after him and grabbed him by the arm.

"Aren't you going to apologize?" the man growled in anger.

Once again, Kasuka bowed his head because that was the only thing he could do, but that only seemed to anger the man who pushed him into the wall and then pinned him there by the neck.

"Apologize, you piece of shit!"

The situation reminded him of the too many times Adabashi had done the same thing and it triggered vivid flashbacks of his time in that basement.

"Tell me why Izaya tried to get Slon to fuck you!" Adabashi shouted in his face, the man squeezing his neck so tightly that it was almost as though he was really trying to kill him. "Just tell me already! I'll never stop if you don't tell me," the man then added before he threw him on the dirty floor and proceeded to kick him until he passed out.

Then the hand around his neck was gone and Kasuka could breathe again, greedily gulping in mouthfuls of air to replenish his deprived lungs while the guy who had just been chocking him was rolling on the ground, screeching about a broken knee.

"Let's go!" Izaya urged with a smile.

Kasuka allowed himself to be led away from there, a feeling of relief washing over him at the knowledge that he was safe. He didn't even know why Izaya made him feel safe, but all of that seemed to no longer matter when Shizuo showed up as well, his brother pulling him into a manly hug (they were still on the street after all) and telling him about how sorry he was for scaring him.

"Now hurry up and move before someone recognizes your brother," Izaya urged.

Shizuo nodded and pulled away, choosing to instead wrap an arm around Kasuka's shoulders since there was no way that he was leaving his brother out of his sight again. He followed Izaya back to the apartment, the genuine worry the flea had displayed for his little brother enough to make him think that perhaps the bastard wasn't scheming some new shit that involved Kasuka. "Go back to sleep," he told his little brother as he led him to the couch. "I'm going to get a smoke and talk to Izaya about something, but don't worry, we're not going to fight again, so you rest and we'll talk more once you wake up." He waited until Kasuka nodded and then motioned for Izaya to follow him. "Lock the door," he told the flea once they were in the hallway, not willing to risk losing Kasuka again.

"I wasn't going to just leave it open," Izaya said, rolling his eyes, and locked the door. He then followed Shizuo up the stairs, curious to hear what the man had to say. They went to the rooftop, the blond leaning on the rail and lighting up a cigarette before finally addressing him.

"Are you really not going to hurt him?"

Izaya glared at him, annoyed that Shizuo would even ask such a question. "I'm not that much of a monster," he finally replied with a sigh as he too leaned on the rail.

"He got hurt because of me, in the past and earlier too. I heard that he was with you and I lost it, fearing the worst," Shizuo confessed and then took a drag from the cigarette.

Izaya turned his head, giving him a curious look. "How did you even know that he was here?"

"Ruri called me as soon as he disappeared. I was already on my way to Tokyo when she called me again and told me that Kasuka was with you. She tried to tell me that you wouldn't hurt him, but I didn't believe her."

So Ruri had a way to contact you, Izaya thought and shook his head. "I'm wounded by your distrust." Neither of them talked for a couple of minutes after that, until Izaya finally broke the silence again. "But I understand, especially after what you've been through because of me."

Shizuo flinched at the comment, Izaya's words reminding him of things he wished to forget. "Change the subject, flea."

"I swear, Shizu-chan, I never told that guy to do that to you. I didn't even bother to speculate on how he might convince you to give him the location of Celty's head." Shizuo shot him a wild glare, the anger in those eyes almost silencing him. "In the beginning, I wanted you to go through the same thing you put me through so that you could see for yourself how it feels like, but I pushed those thoughts aside a long time ago. I wasn't lying when I said that after Kasuka, I couldn't even consider doing such a thing as a way of punishing you."

A sigh left Shizuo's lips and he ran a hand over his face, trying to calm down when the mere thought of anyone seeing that video was enough to make him want to destroy everyone and everything around him and then crawl into a deep and dark hole where he could hide along with his shattered pride. "I shouldn't have reacted like that last time we talked. I wasn't really myself," he said as he looked Izaya in the eye. "I shouldn't have hurt you again, but I couldn't deal with the shame of what happened in that warehouse and I snapped. I'm sorry."

"You have plenty of things to be sorry for, but don't apologize for that night," Izaya told him, his voice much softer than usual. "After that guy forced you to suck his di―"

"Whoa whoa whoa!!!" Shizuo exclaimed in shock as he turned to him, eyes wide and cigarette slipping from between his fingers. "What the hell are you talking about, flea?"

Izaya gave him a confused look, not understanding what he'd said wrong.

"Nothing like that happened!" Shizuo almost screeched, since just thinking about what had almost happened was enough to make his hair stand on end. "Haven't you watched the video?"

"I did!" Izaya answered, so shocked by Shizuo's words that he could barely think. "I watched until those three guys immobilized you and Kuro told them to keep your mouth open."

Shizuo took a deep breath, those words alone enough to make him want to find those assholes and kill them all. He couldn't waste time thinking about that though, not after realizing that Izaya had believed this whole time that he’d been raped. "You called, flea," he then added in a soft voice, the corner of his lips curling upwards a bit. "You saved me."

Izaya had to grip the rail tighter to remain standing, his legs going weak at the knees even though a huge weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. "Don't l-lie to me, Shizu-chan," he added in a trembling voice and blinked rapidly in an attempt to chase away the tears gathering in his eye.

"I'm not," Shizuo said and in the next moment he was punched in the face, Izaya hitting him so hard that he actually ended up falling on his ass.

"This whole time I thought you... that you…"

"I had no idea that you hadn't watched the whole video," Shizuo said and stood up, rubbing his aching cheek. Somehow, it always hurt more when Izaya hit him even though the flea's strength was nowhere close to his own. "Like I said, I was really messed up that day. A part of me even feared that if you saw the video, you’d decide that you couldn't rest until you got Kuro to finish what he started. Looking back, I know how stupid that was, seeing how you defended me when that asshole had me trapped in the bathroom stall."

Izaya punched him again, this time in the chest, but he didn't really put any strength behind it. "I hate you..." he uttered tiredly.

"I hate me too," Shizuo replied. "You know, back then I prayed so hard to be saved even though I knew I deserved it, so when the phone rang and they stopped, that's when I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there's no such thing as a god, because if there was a god, I wouldn't have been saved."

A dark chuckle left Izaya's lips. "Are you sure about that?"

Shizuo's brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh?"

"A god did save you, Shizu-chan," Izaya said and finally raised his head to meet Shizuo's eyes. "I am your God; never forget that, beast." He then turned around and walked away, leaving a stunned Shizuo behind.

Chapter 102: Make Me Believe

To say that Shinra was pissed would be an understatement. He'd found out from Izaya that Shizuo was back and that's why he was in front of the blond's apartment, intending to rip him a new one for breaking their agreement. "Shizuo, open up," Shinra shouted as he banged on the door, his whole body shaking with anger now that the man was back since his mere presence was enough to put Izaya in danger.

Shizuo, who was sitting on the couch thinking about how he could help Kasuka get better, stood up and made his way to the door, a sigh leaving his lips at the thought of having to hear Shinra go on and on about what a monster he was and demanding that he stayed away from Izaya.

"We had a deal," Shinra said as soon as the door opened.

"Hello to you too," Shizuo said sarcastically and motioned for the man to come in. He then closed the door and followed the doctor inside, trying to mentally prepare himself for the barrage of insults and threats he knew were coming.

"I knew that you couldn't stay away from Tokyo forever, but I also didn't expect you to be back so soon," Shinra started, not bothering to hide the annoyance he felt.

Shizuo sat down on the couch and reached for the cigarette pack lying on the coffee table. "I got worried once I heard that Kasuka was with Izaya," he explained and lit up a cigarette. "I know that I promised not to contact anyone, but I had to know how my brother was doing and to be honest, I couldn't exactly trust you to tell me the truth."

"Ha!" Shinra exclaimed mockingly. "If there's someone here who shouldn't be trusted, it's you! You, the guy who acted as though you were so much better than Izaya but who in the end nearly raped him to death."

"Shut up," Shizuo warned and bit into the cigarette he'd just lit, his eye twitching in anger since he didn't want to hear Shinra talk again about how much of a horrible person he was. "You really think I don't know just how badly I fucked up?"

Shinra snorted. "No, I don't think you do. Neither of us can fully understand how Izaya feels because neither of us was ever put through something like that."

"That's true," Shizuo agreed and took a drag from the cigarette, "but I almost went through a similar thing a few weeks back, and even though nothing happened in the end, it still gave me an idea about what I did to him."

The revelation took him so much by surprise that Shinra didn't even know how to react, so he continued to stare at Shizuo for quite some time. "What happened?" he eventually asked in a tone sounding more like curiosity than worry.

"Izaya hired some guys to get me to reveal the location of Celty's head. They threatened my parents, so I had no choice but to go with them." He had no plans of going into details, but even so it was hard to talk about it since the whole thing had been quite terrifying. He was truly grateful to Izaya for having stopped them even though the flea was the one who put him in such a situation to begin with.

"I don't believe that," Shinra said dismissively. "Izaya wouldn't use your family against you again after realizing what a huge mistake it was to get your brother involved the first time."

"He didn't," Shizuo clarified. "Those assholes were too scared of me, so they used my parents to get me to do what they wanted." Just talking about it made him uncomfortable, but it was the only way to get Shinra to understand that Izaya was safe, at least from him. "What I'm trying to say is that I won't ever touch Izaya again, at least not in any way that would be considered inappropriate."

"If you really mean it, then why did you have to specify that you wouldn't touch Izaya inappropriately? You shouldn't touch him at all!" Shinra hissed through gritting teeth.

Even though he wasn't sure that it was such a good idea to tell Shinra the truth, Shizuo decided to do it anyway since he didn't want to hide from the doctor anything that might lead to misunderstandings. "Before I left, Izaya wanted me to help him get over his fear of touching."

"What the hell does that even mean?!" Shinra asked, unable to hide his shock.

"He thinks that if he gets used to me touching him, he'll get over his fear," Shizuo explained, but it didn't seem to work since Shinra looked like he was just about ready to throttle him. "I don't know what the hell you're thinking, but please stop imagining weird shit. He only asked me to grab the wrist I broke before. And before you even say it, I already told him to ask you for help, but he said that you can't help him because he has no problem with you touching him."

Shinra was stuck somewhere between being happy that Izaya trusted him so much and feeling appalled at the thought of Shizuo touching Izaya in any way. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out because he didn't know what to say.

"How can I make you trust me?" Shizuo asked, sounding a bit desperate, and took another drag from the cigarette. The truth was that he was tired of always talking to a hostile Shinra and he missed his old classmate who would smile almost every time they talked.

"I really don't know," Shinra said in a calmer tone, pushing his anger aside for the moment since he too wanted to have a serious discussion with Shizuo. "It's hard for me to think of you as anything but a monster."

"I know..." Shizuo uttered sadly.

"You have to understand that it wasn't easy for me to see Izaya in that state," Shinra said as he ran a hand over his face, trying to chase away the too vivid image of a broken Izaya. "He was bleeding so much..." he then added in a trembling voice, wishing that someone else had fixed Izaya since just thinking about that night made him sick to his stomach.

"I'm sorry. I’m really sorry that you had to go through something like that because of me. You can't even begin to imagine how much I hate myself because of what I did to Izaya."

"Not more than Izaya hates―"

"Just give me a chance!" Shizuo dared to request even though he knew that he had no right to do so after scarring Shinra with the image of a broken Izaya. "Back then, when I was being consumed by rage, I couldn't think further than what was happening in that alley. The consequences of what might happen afterwards never even crossed his mind." He then took a deep breath, trying to get some air into his lungs. It was always hard to breathe because of the guilt, but sometimes it was much worse, especially when he was in front of Izaya or in front of all the people who had ended up getting hurt because of him. "Please..."

Shinra had to admit that he was surprised by the request since Shizuo was not usually the type to beg anyone for a chance, let alone someone who had pissed him off on numerous occasions over the past nine or so months. His first instinct was to tell Shizuo to fuck off because he was scum and because he didn't deserve an ounce of pity, but there was something in the man's eyes that told him just how desperate he was to be given a chance. Maybe it was because they had known each other since they were kids or maybe Shinra wanted to believe it for Izaya's sake, but he ended up nodding slowly, feeling almost as surprised as Shizuo whose brown-yellow eyes had gone wide and his expression changed to one of relief.

"Thank you," Shizuo said with a small smile. "I won't betray your trust, I promise."

"I'm only doing this for Izaya's sake," Shinra made it clear before he turned around, the whole situation making him uncomfortable. "I still think that you're a monster because only a monster could do something like that, but Izaya seems to want to get better and you sound sincere in your wish to help, so I'll wait and see what happen."

"I won't hurt―"

"But be warned!" Shinra said as he suddenly turned around, his body tense and eyes narrowed into murderous slits. "If you hurt Izaya again, I'm going to unleash my own inner monster on you, and believe me when I say that I’m going to make you beg for death within minutes after I get my hands on you."

Shizuo found himself leaning further into the couch, Shinra's maddened look making him fear for his life. He swallowed nervously and then nodded, hoping to appease the man who looked more bloodthirsty than he'd ever seen him. He'd always known that the doctor had a dark side to him, but he'd never seen him truly unleash it.

"I know exactly where to cut to make you scream in agony. I know what to do to inflict the worst pain you could possibly experience. I know how to make you beg for death," Shinra assured him, not even aware of the twisted smile he was showing the blond.

"Shinra," Shizuo uttered softly, a small smile adorning his lips, "you're scary, but I'm glad to know that there's someone out there who would not hesitate to put me down if I ever lost it again."

"You can count on it," Shinra promised, the dangerous glint never leaving his eyes. He then turned around and headed for the door, only to stop just as he was about to press the handle. "You might want to check in with the Awakusu-kai soon," he advised.

"I will," Shizuo promised. "Hey Shinra..."

"What?"

"I'm glad you found a real friend and that the flea had someone who was there for him when he needed it most. Izaya is strong, but I think that at the same time he's quite fragile."

"I don't need you to tell me that," Shinra replied with a frown as his fingers tightened around the handle. "I know Izaya a lot better than you do," he then added and walked out the door, surprised that the meeting had gone a lot better than he'd originally anticipated. He could only hope that Shizuo kept his word and actually helped Izaya instead of breaking him further.

***

It was around noon when Kasuka woke up, Yuigadokusonmaru's meowing pulling him out of the slumber he'd fallen into soon after Izaya and Shizuo had left the apartment to talk. He still couldn't believe that his footsteps had led him to Izaya's place after the accident with Ruri, but most of all he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Izaya had not only helped him but also seemed to not be interested in getting revenge on him. Then there was the fact that Shizuo was back, his brother's unexpected appearance almost destroying the carefully built wall he'd struggled to maintain since the day he had woken up in the hospital and decided that pretending to be okay was a far better choice than showing everyone just how badly Adabashi had broken him.

"Ah, you woke up," Izaya chirped as he walked out of the kitchen before turning to the cat and glowering at it. "Bad Doku-chan!" he admonished it. Yuigadokusonmaru almost seemed to glower back at him for a second before the cat turned around, tail high in the air, and ran into Kasuka's arms, leaving an annoyed Izaya behind. "Traitor," Izaya muttered and then turned around as well, going back into the kitchen. Once there, he picked up the pudding he'd bought for Kasuka and then went back to the living room, smiling as he handed it to him. "I don't really know what you like so I bought this, but there's also some fatty tuna if you want."

Kasuka shook his head and then opened the plastic container, once again grateful that he could at least eat by himself even if his fingers were still quite a mess. He couldn't properly move some of them even after the surgery, but he was hoping that with time and physiotherapy, they would regain their full mobility.

"Need help~?" Izaya chirped when he noticed that Kasuka was struggling with the spoon, much like the night before. As expected, Kasuka refused the help, which annoyed Izaya because he hated seeing the actor being so stubborn. It reminded him too much of himself and of a time when he felt extremely weak and vulnerable. "At least give me Doku-chan," he said with a sigh as he picked up the cat from Kasuka's arms so that the man could eat in peace. "That damn sadist..." he then muttered as he patted the cat's head, immediately regretting his words when he noticed that Kasuka had frozen. "Ah, I'm sorry I mentioned him," he quickly apologized. He couldn't see Kasuka's expression because the man had lowered his head, but Izaya had no doubts that the man's emotionless mask had slipped the moment he'd mentioned Adabashi.

Luckily, Izaya was saved from the awkward situation he'd unintentionally created when someone knocked on the door. He placed the cat down, stood up and went to answer the door, wondering if it was Shizuo since he remembered the blond telling Kasuka that he would see him when he woke up. "Thought so," he said once he opened the door and saw Shizuo standing there, the man looking like he hadn't gotten any sleep that morning. It was understandable, knowing how much it must've hurt the too human beast to see Kasuka like that. "Your brother woke up a few minutes ago, so you got here at just the right moment." He then invited Shizuo inside and made his way to the couch where he took a seat, the whole situation reminding him how much he used to enjoy people-watching, even if what he was watching at that moment was a beast and a freak. Then again, both the beast and the freak were human, or at least as human as the Heiwajimas could ever get.

"Did you sleep well?" Shizuo asked as he took a seat next to his brother.

Kasuka nodded, his emotionless mask back into place. He then raised the plastic container with the pudding inside and offered some to Shizuo, knowing how much his brother loved sweets.

"I... ah... y-you eat it," Shizuo stuttered pathetically, trying to hide the disgust but not really succeeding since he could tell by the way Kasuka was looking at him that his brother knew something was wrong.

Izaya, who knew why Shizuo had developed an aversion towards sweets, jumped in to save him, not for Shizuo's sake but because he didn't think that poor Kasuka needed even more things to worry about. "I bought that for you, Kasu-chan, so you eat it," he said, pretending to be annoyed by the idea of Shizuo eating the pudding.

Shizuo laughed awkwardly. "Y-Yeah... he's right. Don't worry about me. I ate something earlier."

Realizing that he'd made a mistake in offering the pudding to Shizuo, Kasuka nodded and then continued to eat, making a mental note to never again forget that Izaya still hated Shizuo because of what his brother had done to him. He couldn't blame Izaya though, not after all the pain inflicted on him by Adabashi. Their experiences might not have been the same, but unlike in the past, he could now understand the man a lot better, including why Izaya had gone to such lengths to take revenge after what had happened that night. He was actually quite amazed by the fact that Izaya could be around Shizuo after what his brother had done to the Informant. In his own case, he knew that the old Heiwajima Kasuka could easily defeat Adabashi, and yet he doubted that if the sadist stood before him at that very moment, he would have the courage to attack. It made him feel pathetic, but the truth was that Adabashi had succeeded to beat the will to fight out of him.

"Kasuka, can we talk for a bit?" Shizuo asked and then waited until Kasuka nodded before turning to Izaya. "We'll go up to the roof for a bit." He then stood up and headed for the door, Kasuka following behind him. Once on the roof, Shizuo lit up a cigarette and rested his arms on the rail, his head turned to the right and eyes fixed on Kasuka's face. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to find you sooner. No, it's more like, I'm sorry that you got hurt because of me."

Kasuka shook his head and placed his hand Shizuo's shoulder, hoping to make him understand that he didn't blame him.

"You once told me that you wouldn't hate me no matter what," Shizuo continued, "but I... I wouldn't blame you if you did." He then pushed himself away from the rail and pulled Kasuka into his arms, trembling like an idiot as he held his little brother. "I would've given anything for you to not have to go through such a nightmare. I would've gladly died if it meant sparing you all the pain you had to endure at the hands of that psycho bastard. I'm sorry you got hurt because of me. I'm sorry I couldn't find you. I'm sorry that you have such a failure as a big brother."

Despite Shizuo's good intentions, Kasuka ended up getting mad at his idiotic big brother for saying such stupid things. Shizuo wasn't the one responsible for Adabashi's actions, nor was it his fault that the man had gone after him. If anything, the whole thing seemed to have more to do with Ruri than anyone else. Annoyed by the whole thing, he pushed Shizuo away, some of the anger he was feeling showing through the cracks in his mask. He knew that was the case because Shizuo actually looked shocked, his brother not used to him reacting like that. For a second, he actually wanted to hit Shizuo for being so stupid, he even envisioned it, but the thought disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him feeling tired more than anything else. He took a deep breath and then sighed softly, wondering how to make his brother understand that he could never truly hate him. He couldn't deny that at times he could get mad at him, but from that to actually hating him was an astronomical distance, one that he doubted he would ever cross. Not knowing how else to convey his thoughts, he took out his phone and slowly typed a message, the whole thing taking a long time because of his messed up fingers.

[Stop blaming yourself for what happened. It wasn't your fault. And I don't hate you. I could never hate you.]

Shizuo blinked rapidly, trying to chase away the tears starting to form in his eyes. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry for reminding you of that again. I understand how you feel now, so you just get better, okay? I'm h-here for you now. I won't run away anymore," he said in a trembling voice and placed his right hand on top of Kasuka's head. "Your big brother will never let anyone hurt you again. I promise."

***

Inside the apartment, Izaya was sitting in his desk char, wondering when he had gotten so used to Hollywood, the monster who had tried to kill him before, that he even dared to turn his back to her after inviting her inside. He guessed that the too many times he'd spent in the hospital visiting Kasuka might've had something to do with it, but that suited him just fine since he was tired of feeling scared. The fewer monsters he was scared of, the better. "Kasu-chan is with his brother on the rooftop, but they should be back soon."

"I see," Ruri said, glad that Shizuo was back. He knew how much her Yuuhei had missed his brother, which is why she had called the man when Kasuka disappeared, hoping to force him to come back. She had no idea why the man had left Tokyo to begin with, but she was glad that he had contacted her and asked her to keep him up to date with what was going on with Kasuka. Then there was Izaya, the man having helped her beloved even after she had tried to kill him. "Thank you for helping Yuuhei" she said, taking him by surprise if the shocked expression on his face was anything to go by.

"No problem," Izaya chirped as soon as he got over his shock. And as he said it, he realized that monsters-watching was just as fun as people-watching. He already knew that he would have a lot of fun observing how the three monsters interacted with one another, but he was curious about something and he figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask. "Doesn't it bother you that Kasuka has changed?"

"Yuuhei is Yuuhei. I love all of him," Ruri replied in her usual monotone voice.

Izaya chuckled softly. "It's funny to hear someone say that in such a voice. You two are so much alike that it's almost creepy!" He wanted to say more, but the door opened and Shizuo and Kasuka walked in, the freak somehow looking better than when he'd left with Shizuo.

"Shizuo-san, it's good to have you back," Ruri said before she turned her attention to Yuuhei who even though was showing no emotion, was most likely still feeling guilty over accidentally hitting her. "Yuuhei, I've come to take you home," she told him and grabbed his hand, not surprised that it twitched when their fingers made contact. Before he could let her know that he didn't want to leave, she started pulling him in the direction of the door, fearing that if she didn't make him understand that he had nothing to be sorry for, she might lose even more of the old Hanejima Yuuhei she'd fallen in love with. She hadn't lied to Izaya though. She loved Yuuhei regardless of how broken he was.

Both Shizuo and Izaya watched them leave, neither of them saying anything since they both agreed that Kasuka should go back home with Ruri.

"Kasu-chan looked a bit better just now. What did you two talk about?" Izaya asked before he stood up and made his way to the couch, motioning for Shizuo to take a seat as well.

"I apologized for failing to protect him."

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Izaya said, shaking his head and rolling his eye. "You've already apologized last night."

Shizuo lowered his head. "Apologizing a thousand times wouldn't be enough. It won't change what I did to you or what my brother went through because of me."

"Apologizing won't change anything though." Izaya was almost surprised about how much his anger towards Shizuo had decreased during the weeks the man had been away, but he knew that the passing of time was not the only reason that such a change had occurred. He still hated the beast who had nearly killed him, but hating someone took a lot of energy and he didn't want to spend every second of the rest of his life thinking about how much he despised Heiwajima Shizuo. Instead, he wanted to use the man who had broken him to heal. "Ne, Shizu-chan, you still want to help me with my problem?"

Shizuo looked confused for only a moment, until he realized what Izaya was talking about and he nodded slowly, waiting for Izaya to make the first move.

Without hesitation, Izaya stood up and sat on the coffee table in front of Shizuo, their eyes meeting and remaining like that even as Izaya raised his right hand and waited for Shizuo to grab it. To both their surprises, unlike the previous times, he didn't pull back his hand once Shizuo grabbed his wrist. Instead, they stayed like that for a while, looking into each other's eyes.

The whole thing was making Shizuo uncomfortable, but it was what Izaya needed and he wasn't going to deny the man the chance to heal, not when he was the reason why Izaya couldn't stand people touching him. Still, the silence was uncomfortable and since he was really curious about something, he opened his mouth and finally asked the question bothering him since the night before. "How's your eye?"

The question startled Izaya so much that he almost pulled his hand out of Shizuo's grasp, but he managed to stop himself in time, his fingers merely twitching as a result of his inner turmoil. His eye was a sensitive topic for him, but he couldn't blame Shizuo for being curious about it. "I don't know," he replied after a few long moments of silence. "Shinra wouldn't let me take this damn eyepatch off, saying that I need to keep it on for a while longer. It could go either way I guess," he then added with a shrug.

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Shizuo said, smiling a little. "I trust Shinra, even though he wouldn't hesitate to kill me."

Izaya laughed at the comment, recalling the torture Shinra had put Shizuo through when the blond went to get his tooth fixed. "That's Shinra for you," he chirped happily, grateful to have such a friend. "Now grab my upper arm," Izaya then added since he was in a somewhat good mood and he felt adventurous.

"Are you sure?" Shizuo asked, his expression one of concern.

"Yes," Izaya reassured him and then took a deep breath, his eye glued to Shizuo's hand.

Now certain that it was what Izaya wanted, Shizuo released the thin wrist, raised his hand and then gently wrapped his fingers around the flea's upper arm. Izaya's arm twitched in his hand, but that was to be expected. "Do you want me to let go?"

"N-No," Izaya replied in a shaky voice and tried to smile, but he knew that it couldn't possibly look real when he was struggling so much to not yank his arm out of the beast's hand. At least the whole thing made him realize that just because he was relatively okay with Shizuo touching his wrist, it didn't mean that he was fine with the beast touching other parts of his body.

"I've been wondering..." Shizuo started, hoping to distract Izaya from the discomfort he was obviously experiencing.

"What?" Izaya asked through gritting teeth.

"That woman, Fujita Shizuka, do you think she might be able to help Kasuka?"

Izaya's eye went wide, never expecting Shizuo to ask such a question. He blinked a few times, trying to decide how he felt about his therapist also treating Kasuka. To his surprise, he felt no anger. If anything, he thought that it might be interesting, especially since Shizuka knew whose brother Kasuka was. "She's not bad," he said, smiling, already looking forward to her reaction. "Talking to her might be good for him; or typing, since he's still not talking."

"Yeah, I'm really worried about him because of that," Shizuo said, frowning. "Ruri said that his vocals cords aren't damaged, and yet he's still not talking."

"It's a psychological thing," Izaya suggested. "He'll talk once he's ready."

"Yeah... I guess you're right."

"Okay, that's enough. Release me," Izaya ordered, deciding that he'd had enough touching for one day. He hated the idea of Shizuo touching any part of him, but he didn't know how else to get over his fear so he was stuck with using the beast of his nightmares to get better.

Shizuo did as he was told and stood up, knowing that Izaya would most likely want to be alone. "I'll see you around," he said and headed for the door, only to stop in his tracks as Izaya's next words reached his ears.

"You should go visit your parents now that you're back. Your mother was really worried about you."

"Yeah, thanks. I'll do that. Also, thank you for saving me earlier," he said and then walked out of the apartment, wondering just how close had Izaya gotten to his family during the few weeks he'd been away.

***

That afternoon, Izaya called Shizuka, not only because he wanted to discuss Kasuka's case, but also because he'd missed talking to her.

"It's been a while, Orihara-san. I was starting to get worried. Did something happen?"

"Many things happened, Fujita-san," Izaya said and held Yuigadokusonmaru tighter to his chest. He was glad that Ruri had dragged Kasuka out of the apartment, the whole thing giving him the opportunity to spend at least one more day with the little ball of fur.

"Do you wish to talk about it?"

"Not yet, but what I can tell you right now is that I thought I had badly messed up and that's why I couldn't call you. As much as I hate to admit, I don't want Fujita-san to think that I'm a worse person than I already am," Izaya revealed.

"I've already told you, Orihara-san, that my job is to listen, not to judge," Shizuka reminded him.

"I know, but even so, I... ah, nevermind; I don't really want to talk about it right now."

"In that case, what do you wish to talk about?"

"I was wondering if you wouldn't mind talking to Hanejima Yuuhei sometimes. Both myself and his brother think that you might be able to help him."

"I heard on TV that he managed to escape. How is he?" Shizuka asked, wanting to know what she would be dealing with.

"He pretends to be okay by showing everyone the same emotionless expression he always had before, but even I can tell that it's only a mask. That aside, he either can't or doesn't want to talk," Izaya explained.

"It sounds like elective mutism due to trauma, but I won't know for sure until I see him myself."

"I'm not surprised," Izaya said with a sigh, "seeing how he was tortured for months." He then suddenly burst into laughter, realizing just how crazy the whole thing was. "What am I even doing...?"

"You're trying to help someone in need."

"But he's that monster's brother!"

"You don't need me to convince you that what you're doing is the right thing to do. You already know that, don't you, Orihara-san?"

"Y-Yeah... it's not Kasu-chan's fault that his brother is a monster, even though he's a freak too," Izaya said, more to himself than to Shizuka since he couldn't let his anger overcome him again. Helping Kasuka made him feel better, and that was the only thing that mattered. "Thank you," he then added after taking a deep breath. "I'll call you again once he agrees to meet with you."

"Good luck, Orihara-san."

"Thank you. I'm going to need it," Izaya said and then ended the call. He had no doubts that it wouldn't be easy, but he welcomed the challenge.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! Also, don't forget to check the comic made by LZonnaArt for the first chapter of Blind Fury:

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Chapter 103: Vague Hope

Ruri spent the whole afternoon trying to find the best way to make Kasuka understand that she didn't blame him for what happened and that she still loved him as much as she did before, if not more. She knew men were prideful creatures and that her Yuuhei too was suffering because of what he'd had to endure at Adabashi's hands, as well as the fact that he was feeling shame for failing to protect himself. She was deep in thought when Kasuka sat down next to her on the couch and rested his head on her shoulder, a soft sigh leaving his lips as soon as he found a comfortable position. She passed him the remote control, thinking he might want to watch TV, but he ignored it and instead grabbed her hand in his own and interlaced their fingers, the sweet action making her heart flutter.

"I love you," Ruri said and then kissed the top of his head. His fingers twitched at her words and she could tell that he was nervous, but she wanted to put his mind at ease so she continued, hoping to make him understand once and for all just how much she cared about him. "Don't feel stressed over not being able to answer. I don't need words to know how you feel about me. I know that you love me just as much as I love you."

To her surprise, Kasuka raised his head and captured her lips in a heated kiss. She responded in kind, hoping to make him understand that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. To her disappointment, he went no further than that. Instead, he lay on the couch and rested his head on her lap, another soft sigh leaving his lips once she started running her fingers through his hair. "Do you want me to cut your hair?" she offered.

Kasuka shook his head, not liking the idea of anything sharp getting near his body. He didn't like thinking about Adabashi at all, so he tried to push the memories aside and focused on the present. He was no longer in that basement with Adabashi. He was home with the woman he loved. He was safe.

***

The next day, Izaya had just finished some work in Ikebukuro when he caught sight of Kadota and headed in the man's direction, not even caring that Erika was there. "Yo, Dotachin!" he greeted with a smile on his face, ignoring the hateful look Erika gave him. Clearly she was still not over the whole manga-collection-burning thing. As for himself, Izaya felt no remorse towards what he'd done. After all, the woman had gone too far by posting fanfiction about him and the idiotic beast.

"Hey!" Kadota greeted him back just as excitedly since the two of them had gotten closer over the weeks. Izaya had visited him in the hospital every few days even though he didn't have to, and that wasn't something Kadota was going to forget. There was also the fact that many of Izaya's recent actions made sense, so Kadota could no longer be mad at him knowing what the guy had been through.

"Aren't you starting to feel lonely?" Erika asked, the anger she felt towards the Informant still boiling as hot as before.

Izaya turned to her, looking confused for only a second until he realized what she was really asking. His first instinct was to flick open his switchblade and make her understand once and for all that annoying him was a terrible idea, but he had a feeling that such a reaction was exactly what she was expecting so in the end he chose to do the opposite. "I'm fine, thanks for asking," he replied with a smile.

Kadota, who knew what Shizuo had done to Izaya, realized that he had to get rid of Erika before things escalated. "Hey, weren't you just about to join them inside the store to check out some manga?"

"Ah, yes, that's right. I can't waste time with you two right now," she said and headed for the store, the icy look in Izaya's eye nearly making the blood in her veins freeze. Somehow, his smile was far creepier than anything she's ever seen on the Informant's face.

"Sorry about that," Kadota said as soon as Erika entered the store.

"You're not responsible for her actions," Izaya said with a shrug. However, he was unable to look Kadota in the eyes now that he was reminded of the fact that the man knew his shameful secret. "Anyway, I'm glad to see you up and running, so I'll go now," he then added and turned around, nearly jumping out of his skin a moment later when Kadota grabbed him by the arm to stop him from leaving. He pulled his arm out of Kadota's hold, a feeling of shame hitting him as soon as their eyes met and he realized what he'd just done. "I'll go now..." he said and started walking away when Kadota's words stopped him in his tracks.

"I'm the one who should apologize. I shouldn't have done that," Kadota said, sounding remorseful.

"It's not your fault," Izaya uttered softly and started walking again.

"Wait, please!" Kadota pleaded. "There are some things I want to talk to you about. Do you have a few minutes?"

As much as he wanted to leave, Izaya turned around and nodded, deciding that getting it over with was far better than postponing the inevitable. He followed Kadota who started walking away from the van, the man clearly wanting to not have to deal with interruptions from his friends. Unfortunately, Kadota couldn't have picked a worse spot, the dark alley reminding Izaya too much of the night when he'd been defeated by a beast. It was quite similar, but at least the sun had not yet set, that simple fact enough to keep him rooted in the present.

"You don't look so well," Kadota remarked as soon as he noticed how pale Izaya looked.

"I'm fine," Izaya lied with a smile. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I know I said that I will never mention it again, and I was planning to do that, but I need to know what I can and can't do so that I won't mess up again like I did earlier."

Izaya was burning with shame for even having this conversation, but he understood where Kadota was coming from and he couldn't blame him for wanting some guidelines on how to interact with him. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the alley's wall, his eye fixed on an invisible spot on the ground. "Don't surprise me like that again."

"I see. I didn't mean to startle you," Kadota apologized once again. Just thinking about what Izaya must've gone through was enough to nearly make him shudder, so he couldn't blame the man for not wanting people to touch him. In fact, he was quite surprised at how well Izaya was doing considering that his attacker was none other than Heiwajima Shizuo. "Anything else?"

"Yeah," Izaya said and chucked darkly as he pushed himself away from the wall. "Don't drag me into dark alleys anymore."

The words hit Kadota so hard that he couldn't even find his voice to apologize to Izaya for having picked such a terrible spot to have their conversation in. Instead, he remained there for a while, frozen on the spot as he imagined Shizuo dragging Izaya in a not so different alley. Another shudder hit him and he shook his head, trying to chase away the images that kept popping in his head.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath and finally walked out of the alley, making a mental note to be more careful next time he ran into Izaya.

***

After the conversation he had with Shinra, Shizuo waited until the next day before finally going to see Shiki. He was on his way there when he received a call from Izaya, and even though he was not in the mood to talk since he was a bit nervous about the whole Awakusu-kai thing, he still answered the phone.

"What do you want?" he asked, sounding a bit more annoyed than he'd intended.

To his surprise, instead of answering, Izaya ended the call, obviously pissed about his tone. Shizuo blinked a few times and then pocketed the phone, deciding that it was best to deal with Izaya after talking to Shiki. The truth was that he hated working for the Yakuza and he was hoping to go back to working with Tom. Unlike the Yakuza, Tom would never ask him to kill someone, and even though Shiki and Dougen had promised not to do it either, Shizuo couldn't trust them to keep their word. The Yakuza were ruthless and Shizuo didn't want to one day be put in a situation where he'd be ordered to kill someone. He wanted to spend the rest of his life making up to his brother and to Izaya, as well as to all those people who ended up getting hurt because of him.

"Is Shiki-san here?" he asked as soon as he entered the building and ran into one of the Awakusu-kai members.

"He's in his office," the man answered. "It's good to have you back, Heiwajima-san," he then added.

"Uh... yeah... thanks," Shizuo said awkwardly and then headed for the place where he knew he'd find Shiki. Once there, he knocked on the door and walked in, not expecting to receive such a cold welcome from the man.

"What are you doing here?" Shiki asked, only sparing Shizuo a glance before going back to reading the file in his hand.

"I figured I should let you know that I'm back," Shizuo answered, wondering what it was about Shiki that made him so nervous.

"And yet you didn't bother to let us know that you were planning to leave Tokyo," Shiki reminded him and took a drag from the cigarette he'd just lit.

"I... I'm sorry, Shiki-san," Shizuo apologized, knowing that he shouldn't have left like that. "I was really messed up because of everything that happened and I couldn't think straight. "I just―"

"You're no longer needed."

Shizuo's eyes went wide and his heart nearly stopped as soon as Shiki's words reached his ears. "W-What?"

Shiki placed the file on the desk and then stared straight into Shizuo's eyes. "Leave."

"L-Leave? Why? W-What does that mean?" Shizuo stuttered, unable to hide his shock.

"It means that we don't want you anymore," Shiki made it clear.

"Is it... really alright for me to leave?" Shizuo asked in a nervous tone since he found it hard to believe that the Awakusu-kai would let him leave just like that. What if someone was going to put a bullet through his head the second he walked out that door? What if they were going to throw him in a river or bury him somewhere and his family would spend the rest of their days thinking that he'd ran away again? If that was the case, then he would much prefer to continue working for the Awakusu-kai than to get killed by them.

"Stop thinking crazy things," Shiki said once he noticed how pale the man had turned. "We're not going to kill you. We simply don't want you working for us anymore. You're not Yakuza-material; that much is obvious. Go take care of your brother and never come back here again," he then added before he stood up, made his way to the door, and then opened it. "Get out already, I got work to do."

Shizuo remained frozen on the spot for a bit longer until he regained control of his body and finally walked out the door. He tried to thank Shiki, but the man closed the door in his face, obviously no longer willing to waste another second on him. Even though the man could no longer see or hear him, Shizuo still bowed his head. "Thank you," he said and then walked away from there, still trying to get over the shock of what had just happened.

***

Izaya was working on something, or at least trying to, when he heard someone knock on the door. He stood up and made his way to there, wondering who it was. "Ah, it's you," he mumbled as soon as he saw Shizuo standing there, the idiotic blond already looking regretful over having snapped at him over the phone. He then turned around and headed back to his desk, leaving the door open.

Unsure what to do, Shizuo stood there for a few more seconds before finally stepping inside. He then closed the door behind him and made his way to Izaya's desk, almost certain that the flea was angry at him if the annoyed look on that too good-looking face was anything to go by. "I'm sorry for having snapped at you earlier over the phone." Seeing how Izaya was ignoring him, Shizuo continued. "I was nervous about talking to Shiki. I didn't mean to take it out on you." He almost expected Izaya to continue to ignore him, but the flea finally stopped typing and raised his head, their eyes finally meeting.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Izaya said as he reclined further into the chair. "That you no longer have to worry about the Awakusu-kai because I took care of it."

As expected, Shizuo was shocked by his words, and Izaya enjoyed the myriad of expressions the too human beast was showing. It was pretty obvious that Shizuo was feeling guilty over snapping at him, but the prevalent feeling showing on the blond’s face was one of relief. "You're welcome," Izaya added and then smiled, the sweetest smile he could muster, knowing that it would mess with Shizuo's head. Unlike in the past, he wasn't doing it out hatred but because messing with Shizuo was always fun and because feeling amused beat feeling angry all the time. He wanted to be more like the old Izaya who would use any opportunity to mess with the man before him.

Shizuo nearly forgot how to breathe at the sight because Izaya being nice always shocked him and because he didn't think that he deserved to be shown any type of kindness. If anything, he thought that he deserved to be hated and despised by the man before him, the man he'd broken after allowing the animal inside him to take over. The fact that his heart had skipped a beat at the sight wasn't helping either, especially when he knew that he did not even have the right to gaze upon the man before him. Izaya's eye was still upon him, that sweet smile still not leaving the flea's face. Shizuo swallowed nervously and then licked his dry lips, realizing that he should thank Izaya for convincing the Awakusu-kai to set him free. "T-Thanks," he said, sounding nervous. "I... I'm really grateful. Why did you do it though?"

"I have my reasons," Izaya replied, still smiling, "but I mostly did it for myself. A dead Shizu-chan can't help me with my problem, and we both know that it's possible for you to end up dead if you continue to work for the Yakuza."

"Makes sense..."

The smile on Izaya's face finally disappeared when he recalled the day before and he decided to expand on his words since he wanted Shizuo to understand exactly why he'd gone so far as to free him from the Awakusu-kai even if it meant doing him a favor. "Yesterday I ran into Dotachin, and even though I know that he would never hurt me, I still flinched when he touched my arm. This… thing cannot continue. I need to fix it and you are going to help me fix it. Understood?"

Shizuo nodded and then went around the desk until he was standing in front of Izaya, feeling as horrible as he always did whenever he remembered that Izaya was scared of him. He didn't fail to notice that his position was making Izaya nervous, so he kneeled in front of him and then raised his hand, waiting for Izaya to place his wrist in it. "I want to help you get over this fear of me. I want you to trust me not to hurt you again," he uttered as he stared right into Izaya's wide eye. "Please, Izaya, let me help you."

As soon as he got over the initial shock, Izaya let out a nervous chuckle and placed his hand on top of Shizuo's head, his gesture surprising the remorseful beast. "You resemble a harmless puppy when you act like this, but we both know that appearances can be deceiving, don't we, Shizu-chan?"

The words were like a knife being plunged into his heart and Shizuo lowered his head in shame. He tried to do the same with his hand, but Izaya grabbed it by the wrist before he could lower it.

"It's funny, you know?" Izaya started, frowning a little. "That I can touch you like this but feel as though my skin is crawling whenever you do it."

"It's not that weird," Shizuo said, still not raising his head. "I hurt you in a way that no person should ever be hurt."

"At least you know that," Izaya said and released Shizuo's wrist. He then wrapped his hands around the beast's neck and started to squeeze, hard enough to make it difficult for him to breathe but not enough to suffocate him. "I still really hate you, you know? You do too, don't you? No matter how sorry you are or how much you want to help me, deep down inside, you still want to kill me."

"I... d-don't..." Shizuo struggled to speak.

"Don't lie to me, Shizu-chan, tell me the truth. Tell me how much you hate me. Be honest with yourself and stop acting like you're some sinner who has seen the light and turned into a saint," Izaya demanded. Shizuo didn't say anything for a while and instead continued to stare at the floor while Izaya kept choking him, unable to push back the anger and hatred he felt towards the beast kneeling at his feet. Finally, just as he was about to release Shizuo because of how annoyed he felt by the whole thing, the beast grabbed both his wrists and raised his head.

"You're right, flea," Shizuo admitted, not releasing Izaya's wrists even when he felt the insect shudder. "I still hate you, but I don't want to hurt you anymore. I can't hurt you anymore." He then released Izaya's wrists and stood up, his lips set into a small smile. "That's normal though, isn't it? It's fine if we hate each other. It's fine if you cut me and tell me how stupid I am because that’s just who we are."

Regardless of how ridiculous the whole thing had sounded, Izaya still couldn't help but laugh. Shizuo continued to loom over him, but Izaya had a feeling that by doing so, the idiotic beast was trying to help him get used to his presence. The strange thing was that Shizuo's words were making him feel better, so before the courage he was feeling dissipated and he felt like a coward again, he pulled out his switchblade, flicked it open and slashed at the beast's hand, not going for the chest since he didn't want to injure him too much.

Shizuo jumped backwards, smiling. "This is more like you," he said and looked at his hand, his smile turning into a smirk when he saw the blood trickling down his fingers.

Izaya stood up, smirking as well. "You're right, but you standing there looking at me without attacking is not like you at all," Izaya said even though he was terrified at the thought of the beast attacking.

"You're right," Shizuo agreed and used his other hand to put pressure on the cut. "But that's enough for now, isn't it? Don't push yourself too hard. Let's take this slowly, okay?"

"Yeah," Izaya replied in the steadiest tone he could muster, hoping to hide the relief he was feeling. A moment later someone knocked on the door and he remembered that he was expecting visitors. "Go bandage the wound quickly," Izaya urged him as he pocketed the switchblade.

"Huh?"

"Kasu-chan is here and I don't want him to see this. He wouldn’t understand," Izaya explained, sounding frustrated.

Shizuo had a lot of questions, but he nodded and quickly ran up the stairs, he too not wanting his brother to see the blood.

Downstairs, Izaya opened the door, his eye immediately settling on the box Kasuka was holding. "Ah, Kasu-chan, come in. Let me hold that for you," he then added as he extended his hands.

Kasuka handed it to Izaya and then closed the door before following Izaya inside.  [It's a gift for you. I hope you like it.]

Izaya's gasped in surprise, not only because Kasuka had brought him a gift but also because the man was typing on what looked like Celty's PDA.

[It was a gift from Celty-san,] Kasuka explained when he noticed that Izaya's eye remained glued to the device in his hands.

"That was nice of her," Izaya said and proceeded to open the box, his smile disappearing as soon as he saw the chocolate cake inside.

Guessing what Izaya was thinking, Kasuka proceeded to explain. [It's a dark chocolate cake.]

"Oh!" Izaya exclaimed cheerfully, already looking forward to digging into it. He didn't like sweets but he'd had dark chocolate before and it was one of the things he enjoyed to eat once in a while. "You should have some too."

[Thank you, but I prefer sweeter things,] Kasuka explained and then turned around when he heard the sounds of a door opening and then closing upstairs. His eyes lit up with joy when he saw his brother smiling at him, but they quickly darkened when he noticed the bandage on Shizuo's right hand.

"You bought the flea cake?" Shizuo asked, sounding amused even though the sight made him quite nauseous. "He doesn't like sweet things," he then added and made his way down the stairs, not failing to notice that Kasuka's eyes were glued to his hand. "This is nothing, so don't worry about it. I didn't get into any fight, if that's what you're thinking. I accidentally cut myself when washing the dishes last night." Unfortunately, Kasuka didn't appear to believe him.

Izaya immediately pulled the box closer to him, hoping to distract Kasuka and at the same time save Shizuo from having to eat cake. "It's mine. Shizu-chan can't have any."

[It's a dark chocolate cake,] Kasuka explained.

"I see. Enjoy it, flea," Shizuo said before turning to Kasuka, hoping that his brother hadn't realized how much relief he felt at not having to eat cake. "I have some good news for you."

"Shizu-chan no longer has to work for the Yakuza," Izaya said it before Shizuo could give Kasuka the good news himself. "I told them that Shizu-chan is a complete loser who can't follow orders or keep his anger in check and that it would be in their best interest to not waste any more time on him." Kasuka appeared stunned by the revelation, so Izaya continued in a somewhat nervous tone. "However, there’s one thing they asked in return for setting Shizuo free..."

Shizuo's eyes narrowed into murderous slits, already not liking the sound of it. "What did you agree to, flea?"

"Well... they want to meet Kasu-chan and Ruri once Kasu-chan is feeling well," Izaya revealed and then quickly made his way into the kitchen.

"You asshole!" Shizuo shouted after him and was about to follow him when Kasuka stopped him by shoving the PDA in his face.

[I don't mind. If this is what it takes to keep you safe, then I'm willing to do it.]

His brother's sweet words made his anger disappear and he pulled him in his arms, wondering how anyone so kind could be his brother. "Thanks, Kasuka. I love you."

Kasuka waited until Shizuo let him go before typing his reply. [I love you too, nii-san.]

"You can go, but I'm coming with you," Shizuo made it clear.

[I wasn't planning to go without you.]

Now that the atmosphere was lighter, Izaya stepped out of the kitchen and made his way to the desk where he sat down and proceeded to cut a slice of cake. "You sure you don't want any, Kasu-chan?"

[I'm sure. Please enjoy.]

"Are you going to stay here for a while longer?" Shizuo asked, wondering if he should leave. He didn't exactly understand why Kasuka was getting along so well with Izaya, but it made him happy that Izaya liked the company of at least one Heiwajima.

"It's fine, Shizu-chan. Ruri called before you got here and asked me if Kasu-chan can spend the afternoon here since she has work to do and she didn't want him to remain alone at home," Izaya said and took a spoonful of cake, his eye nearly rolling in his head at the divine taste.

"Oh, okay. I have to go though, so you two take care," he said and made his way to the door. "Oh, and Izaya?"

"Yeah?" Izaya replied, mouth full of cake.

"Take care of my brother."

Izaya snorted in reply and went back to eating his cake while Kasuka sat down on the couch and turned the TV on.

Shizuo spared them one last glance and then walked out the door, smiling and thinking about how grateful he was to the flea for being so nice to his brother. Somehow, it felt as though things were finally going to get better.

Chapter 104: The Other Side

For the first time in a long time, Shizuo felt like he could finally breathe easier now that he was no longer being forced to work for the Yakuza. It wasn't that he hated the Awakusu-kai since they had helped him on more than one occasion, but those people were far too ruthless when it came to their enemies and they didn't shy away from killing people, something that Shizuo did not agree with. He might've been willing to kill Adabashi, but that was only because the bastard was simply too dangerous and they couldn't afford to let him live. In the end though, Ruri had been the one to end the man's wretched existence, thus sparing him the sin of having to kill another human being even though someone like Adabashi was more like a monster than anything else.

And since he was no longer working for the Awakusu-kai, it meant that he could finally go back to his old job. At least that's what he was hoping for as he made his way to the place where he was going to meet up with Tom and Vorona. Even if he wasn't going to get his job back, meeting with them would at least give him the opportunity to once again thank Vorona for having saved his brother. If it hadn't been for Vorona, Celty and Ruri, he would've certainly been dead.

"And here I was, thinking that you've forgotten about your senpai," Tom joked when he saw Shizuo approach.

"I'm sorry. A lot of things happened during the past few months and I..." Shizuo trailed off apologetically.

"It's fine, it's fine," Tom assured him and gave him a pat on the back. "Now tell me, are you interested in getting your old job back?" he inquired with a smile.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Shizuo said, sounding relieved. "I'd love to come back to work."

"That's great! Now let's go eat something in celebration of your return. What do you say?"

"Yeah, sure. I'd love that," Shizuo replied calmly, but on the inside he was really excited at the prospect of spending some time with his senpai and his kouhai. Speaking of Vorona, he didn't know if she'd told Tom anything about Kasuka, so he decided to properly thank her another time. Even so, he still approached her once Tom darted ahead of them to look for a good place where they could eat. "I want to thank you properly sometimes," Shizuo said, smiling a little. "You've not only helped me with the favor I asked of you, but also you helped save my brother."

"It is not necessary. You are welcome," she replied and then turned around and headed after Tom. As happy as Vorona was that Shizuo was back, she was also afraid that one day he would find out she had been working with Slon and that she wasn't the nice person he thought she was.

Shizuo took one last smoke before he crushed the cigarette butt beneath the sole of his shoe and then followed after Tom and Vorona, looking forward to spending some time with two people who had helped him on more than one occasion. Even though he thought that he didn't deserve to be shown any kindness, he was grateful to have such people in his life. It made the every day hell a bit more bearable.

***

There was something pleasant about Kasuka coming to visit even though in the past they used to dislike each other. Izaya guessed that it was because he liked the idea of Shizuo's brother relying on him. Somehow, it felt as though he was taking something important from his archenemy and that was enough to bring a smile to his face. That wasn't the only reason though. The two of them had been through terrible things and at times Izaya felt that Kasuka was the only one who came close to really understanding him. Shinra had been one of Adabashi's victims too, but a few broken bones hadn't been enough to break the doctor's spirit.

Above everything though, he admired Kasuka's mental strength. The man had been Adabashi's prisoner for approximately two months, and that was without counting the time he'd spent locked in that cabin with Slon. In Izaya's opinion, it was truly a miracle that Kasuka had managed to last for so long before finally breaking. His freedom had been taken away by two very dangerous men and yet Kasuka had endured the torture for months, something that Izaya doubted he could do. Their ordeals had been different, but both had broken as a result of horrible things being done to them.

Memories of that fateful night came to his mind and he shuddered when he recalled Shizuo's maddened eyes, those pale yellow eyes looking colder than he'd ever seen them before. Stop thinking about that night, he told himself and took a deep breath. The side of Shizuo he'd met that night was just that, a side of the man he'd known for a very long time; an ugly side, one that Izaya doubted he would ever see again. No matter what Shinra said, Izaya believed that Shizuo had proven himself to be capable of keeping that monster in check, and that was more than he could ask for knowing how volatile the beast was.

His eyes drifted back to Kasuka and he smiled when he saw the man playing with Yuigadokusonmaru, the two reminding him of old friends trying to make up for lost time. Thinking of the cat, he realized that Kasuka had not yet told him that he wanted to take it back, something that Izaya found to be strange since he knew how much the actor loved the little ball of fur.

"Kasu-chan, I'm curious about something," Izaya said as he approached the couch. He then sat next to Kasuka, his smile widening when Doku-chan stopped what he was doing and crawled into his lap. Luckily, Kasuka didn't seem upset by the development, the man taking the opportunity to type now that his hands were free.

[?]

"Why haven't you taken Doku-chan with you yet?" Izaya asked and began petting Yuigadokusonmaru. The cat purred in response, clearly enjoying the treatment.

[Because I don't want you to be sad,] Kasuka revealed.

Izaya was actually stunned by the reply, not realizing until that moment just how much Kasuka's opinion of him had changed. "Thanks, Kasu-chan, but Doku-chan is yours and as much as I came to love him, I don't want to take him away from you."

[I'm not giving him to you, but I don't mind if you keep him for a while longer, at least until you can finally give him back without feeling too sad about it.]

"That's really sweet of you, Kasu-chan, but his company might cheer you up, so it'd be best if you took him back," Izaya argued.

[I will see him when I visit.]

Only the sounds of Yuigadokusonmaru purring could be heard for what felt like forever until Izaya finally realized what Kasuka was saying. He nodded, his lips set into the most sincere smile he had probably ever shown anyone. "Kasu-chan is always welcome here."

[Thank you,] was Kasuka's simple reply.

Izaya couldn't see Kasuka's face since the man had lowered his head, but he was almost certain that what Kasuka was feeling at that moment was relief. Somehow, it looked like Shizuo's brother had grown attached to him, something he found to be extremely amusing given their past. Even so, he too didn't want to see Kasuka sad anymore. That was one of the reasons he'd talked to the Awakusu-kai and convinced them to set Shizuo free. It was, in fact, the only selfless reason he'd had when it came to the whole thing. The other reasons were selfish, but that was to be expected since he'd always been a selfish person. The most selfish reason however was that he didn't want Shizuo to become someone important to Shiki and the Awakusu-kai. He simply did not want Shizuo to take any more things away from him.

He might have chosen not to share the Awakusu-kai with Shizuo, but he was more than willing to share Fujita Shizuka with Kasuka. Still, he knew that it wouldn't be easy to convince him to see someone and as such he had to play his cards right. "Doku-chan's presence certainly helped, but there was someone who really helped me get through the dark times. I realized, after your girlfriend tried to kill me, that things were badly spiraling out of control and that I needed someone to talk to, someone who could help me make sense of things. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you might feel better if you talk to someone about what happened to you. She's a really good listener and she doesn't judge. She's also great at giving advice. What do you say? Should I arrange a meeting here, in my apartment?" Unfortunately, Kasuka wasn't replying, which made Izaya think that perhaps he'd messed up. "It doesn't have to be now," he said in an attempt to stop Kasuka from feeling as though he was being cornered. "Just think about it, okay?"

[Okay.]

Kasuka was clearly bothered by the suggestion, but at least it looked like he was considering it and that was more than Izaya could ever ask for.

He was just about to tell him more about Shizuka when he heard a knock on the door and he went to see who it was. "Shizu-chan?" he asked, surprised. "Why are you back here today?"

"Ruri told me that she will be working late tonight and asked me if I could take Kasuka home," Shizuo explained once he was inside the apartment.

"I see. He's all yours then," Izaya said before turning to Kasuka who stood up and greeted his brother. "I'll see you around."

[Thank you for having let me spend the afternoon here.]

Izaya waved a dismissive hand. "It's fine. Thanks for the cake."

[It was the least I could do.]

"I'll call a taxi," Shizuo announced, but Kasuka seemed to not like the idea.

[I want to get some fresh air.]

"I understand but―"

[Please, nii-san, I am tired of being locked up inside,] Kasuka pleaded. He didn't like crowds and he was scared about being recognized, but he wanted to see the outside world for longer than the few minutes it took to get out of the car and into the apartment building and vice versa.

"I won't know what to do if someone recognizes you," Shizuo said, hoping to convince him that it was a bad idea. It wasn't that he didn't understand how his little brother was feeling, but he was worried how people might react if they saw him. Most of all, he was worried about how Kasuka might react if he found himself cornered.

Izaya walked past the brothers, went up the stairs, grabbed one of the winter scarves from his closet and then made his way downstairs, smirking. "I think I have an idea," he said and proceeded to pull the hood over Kasuka's head before wrapping the scarf around the man's neck, covering the lower part of his face. "I doubt anyone will recognize you now, especially since your hair is longer than before."

[Thank you.]

Shizuo wanted to tell Izaya that he was an idiot for interfering in their discussion, but he couldn't do it when Kasuka looked so happy at the prospect of walking through Tokyo's streets. It made sense for someone who had been locked up for such a long time to want to be able to roam freely at least once in a while. "Thanks," he said with a sigh before he turned around and made his way to the door, Kasuka following closely behind him. "See ya around, flea."

"Bye~" Izaya replied with a wave of his hand.

***

The ride out of Shinjuku had been surprisingly uneventful, but that changed a few minutes after exiting the subway station when fate made it so that Shizuo ran into the last person he ever wanted to see again.

"Oh, it's nice to see you again," Kuro greeted him. He wasn't surprised when Ikebukuro's strongest froze, the man's wide eyes a clear sign that he was still very much affected by what had happened. "And who might this be?" he added and turned his attention to the person standing next to the blond and trying really hard to hide his face. "Oh, could it be Hanejima Yuuhei himself? It's an honor!" he said and tried to take the actor's hand to shake it, but Shizuo grabbed his wrist, the man momentarily overcoming the panic he was experiencing to protect his little brother. Kuro thought it was quite cute, but he couldn't really enjoy the scene when it felt as thought the bones in his wrist might just break with how hard Ikebukuro's strongest was squeezing.

"Go inside," Shizuo ordered and motioned for Kasuka to enter the store they were standing next to. He needed his brother to get away as quickly as possible from the freak smiling so creepily at them since he knew just how dangerous the man was. Shizuo then waited until Kasuka was out of sight before he pushed Kuro in the direction of the closest alley and then slammed him against the wall, the violent impact knocking the air out of the bastard's lungs.

"Calm down," Kuro said once he could speak again even though it was hard to do so because of the tight grip around his neck. "I only wanted to shake his hand and maybe ask for an autograph."

"You do not touch him, ever!" Shizuo growled, his face merely inches away from that of Kuro.

Regardless of the dangerous situation he knew he was in, Kuro maintained his calm demeanor. "I wasn't planning to. I must say though, he's quite the beauty."

This time Shizuo lost it and punched the wall right next to Kuro's head, barely succeeding in stopping himself from hitting him square in the face. "I'll kill you if you touch him. I'll kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill! Kill! Kill!" he kept repeating the words like a mantra, half because he was starting to lose himself to his anger and half because he was hoping to make the fucker still smirking at him understand that he wasn't joking.

"I suggest you calm down if you know what's good for you and your family," Kuro reminded him since it looked like Ikebukuro's strongest had forgotten that killing him meant condemning his parents to death.

Shizuo roared and then punched the wall again, the crater he'd previously made turning into a hole. He then took a deep breath, trying to calm down enough to be able to speak. "Don't think that you can use my parents in this situation," he hissed through gritting teeth. "They would gladly give their lives for my brother."

"But not for you, huh?" Kuro asked, smirking cruelly.

"Shut up," Shizuo growled menacingly and tightened his hold around the man's neck.

"Y-You're... really p-pretty when you... get a-angry; makes me want to r-ruin you even more," Kuro struggled to speak as he cupped the cheek of the man threatening to kill him. Wide light brown, almost yellow eyes stared back at him in shock and he took advantage of the fact that the blond had frozen to run his thumb over the man's lips.

Disgust like he hadn't felt since that day overcame him and Shizuo backed away, suddenly feeling the need to put as much distance as possible between himself and the sick fuck leering at him. "The hell are you doing?!" he growled. "I'll kill you, I'll really fucking kill you!"

"Relax," Kuro said and then moved away from the wall and towards Shizuo. "No one's paying me to do anything right now. Besides, what happened back then was just me doing my job. It was nothing personal."

Shizuo snorted, hoping to hide how disturbed he was by the whole thing. "It felt pretty damn personal to me," he said once his back hit the wall and he had nowhere else to go, "especially since you went after me in that restaurant even after the job had been canceled."

"Ah, yes, that was very unprofessional of me. I apologize," Kuro said before he raised his arm and placed his palm on the wall right next to the blond's head. "I don't normally do things like that outside the job, but can you blame a man for wanting to make Ikebukuro's strongest submit to him? After all, you were really cute when you were licking my fingers clean, so when I saw you again inside the restaurant, I hoped that we could finish what we had started in that warehouse," Kuro said and placed his other hand on Shizuo's shoulder.

"Don't touch me," Shizuo growled but did nothing to push him away. "You're disgusting," he continued, hoping to make him understand once and for all that he was not interested in having anything to do with him. "There's nothing cute about forcing yourself on someone."

"But there is something fascinating about bringing down someone who's always been at the top, wouldn't you agree?"

Shizuo wanted to argue that it wasn't, but he couldn't say those words when he'd done the same thing to Izaya. He'd taken the flea from his place up high and flung him down to the ground. That alone made him just as horrible as the bastard before him.

Since it looked like Shizuo was deep in thought, Kuro took advantage of the situation and leaned in until his lips were almost touching the man's ear. "Let's finish what we started back then. I promise I'll treat you gently this time around," he whispered in a husky voice.

The first thing Shizuo felt as Kuro's words reached his ear was utter disgust, followed by the sensation of insects crawling all over his skin. As much as he wanted to bash the bastard's head in, he knew that he couldn't do such a thing and that he needed to calm down because Kuro was most likely playing mind games with him. However, it did look like the creep was interested in him, which meant that Shizuo had to make it clear once and for all that he had no intention of ever submitting to him.

"I'm not interested," he said and smacked Kuro's hand away. "Besides, you got it all wrong. I've never been anywhere near the top. I'm just a monster who lives at the bottom, crushing anyone stupid enough to piss me off. And you know what? You're really starting to piss me off," he growled in the most dangerous tone he could muster as he stared straight into Kuro's eyes. "Now don't show your face before me again unless you want to meet a real monster," he then added before he pushed Kuro away and walked out of the alley, his mind set on taking Kasuka home before going back to Izaya to talk to him about Kuro and hopefully find a way to get rid of him once and for all.

***

It was dark outside when Izaya decided to take a break from work and eat another slice of the delicious cake Kasuka had brought. He walked out of the kitchen with a plate in hand and a spring in his step, humming a song while wondering if there anything good to watch on TV. He'd just sat down and was skimming through the channels when he heard someone knock on the door. His brows furrowed in annoyance and he almost considered pretending not to be home, but Shizuo's desperate tone while calling his name convinced him otherwise.

Now a little bit worried, he placed the plate on the coffee table, stood up and made his way to the door. "Why are you here a third time today?" he said and waited for Shizuo to get inside before closing the door and making his way back to the couch and the delicious slice of cake waiting for him.

"I ran into Kuro today," Shizuo said, sounding quite panicky.

Izaya once again placed the plate down on the coffee table, already feeling his stomach turn upside down at the mere mention of that man's name. Kuro might not have done anything to him, but he still knew what the man was capable of and that was enough to know that he needed to stay as far away from him as possible. Shizuo was pacing the living room, the beast clearly agitated over having run into someone who had treated him so horribly. It might not have been anywhere near what Izaya had been put through, but it was obvious that Shizuo was still affected by what had occurred that day.

"He recognized Kasuka," Shizuo revealed and continued pacing since he felt extremely agitated.

Izaya stiffened in response, horrified by the thought of that bastard getting anywhere near Kasuka. The actor had suffered enough and the last thing he needed was another weirdo obsessed with him. "Did he do or say anything to him?"

"He said that it was an honor and tried to shake his hand. I didn't let him," Shizuo replied, his tone one of horror mixed with fury. "He didn't seem that interested in Kasuka though."

"That's good... that's good," Izaya said, feeling like he could breathe just a little bit easier. "I don't know the guy well, but what I do know is that he tries not to start any scandals outside his job. It wouldn't be in his best interest to go after someone as famous as your brother."

"Y-Yeah... right? It'd be stupid of him to do anything to Kasuka," Shizuo uttered, more to convince himself than to convince Izaya.

"Then it should be fine," Izaya said with a smile as he picked up the plate again even though he was still very much disturbed by what he'd just heard.

"On second thought, I'm still worried," Shizuo said in a slightly trembling voice. "He said that Kasuka is a beauty."

That alone was enough to destroy any desire Izaya might have had to eat the slice of cake. Sighing once again, he stood up, went to the kitchen, placed the plate with the cake inside the fridge and then made his way back to the living room, all the while cursing the day when he'd made the stupid mistake of getting someone as dangerous as Kuro involved in his feud with Shizuo. He was just about to tell Shizuo that he will talk to Kuro and see if he could convince him to not bother Kasuka when Shizuo suddenly stopped in front of him, the horrified expression on the blond's face startling him enough to take a step backwards.

"I'm a creep too, aren't I?" Shizuo asked, his whole body trembling in horror. The realization had been quite mortifying and all he could think about was how much he hated himself for instilling such feelings of revulsion within the man before him.

Izaya blinked in confusion, not understanding what Shizuo was trying to say. "What...?"

"I really... am... a creep."

"Huh...?"

Shizuo wanted to get his legs to move so that he could leave and never show his face around Izaya again, but he couldn't do it when it felt as though he had no energy left in his body. "Kuro w-wants us to continue what we s-started in that warehouse," he said in a trembling voice, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor as he recalled the humiliating things he'd suffered at the hands of that man. "He creeps m-me out. He makes my s-skin crawl."

The shock of seeing Shizuo like that was followed by disgust towards Kuro and even though it was Shizuo, Izaya still felt sorry for him, at least as sorry as one could feel towards someone who had put them through hell.

"I'm sorry, Izaya, I'm so sorry," Shizuo continued. "I'm probably creeping you out every time I'm anywhere near you. I don't blame you for feeling that way. I understand now. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You know that, right?"

"Shizu-chan, I―"

"I'll never appear before you again. I don't want you to be creeped out by me anymore. I'll stay away. I'll never bother you again. I promise. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what I did. If I could turn back time, I would never do that to you, I swear."

The whole thing was quite shocking and Izaya wasn't really sure how to react. "You're rambling, so just―"

"I shouldn't have come here, but that man is dangerous and I didn't know where else to go. What if I have no choice but to give in to his demands to keep my family safe? Ah, what am I saying? I'm disgusting for expecting to get help from someone I hurt. I'm the worst."

Tired of being ignored, Izaya walked up to Shizuo, grabbed the idiot's face with both hands and forced him to look at him. Shizuo appeared to be one step away from bursting into tears, a sight that Izaya could never get used to since it was hard to reconcile the image of the monster he'd unfortunately come to know with that of the human who deeply regretted his actions. "You're not a creep."

Shizuo opened his mouth to argue otherwise, but Izaya's annoyed expression told him that it was best to shut the hell up.

"You're really scary sometimes, but you're not a creep," Izaya assured him. "Even when you were..." Izaya started and then stopped to take a deep breath before continuing. "You didn't try to... to make me enjoy it. I hate you for what you did to me, but knowing that it was an act of violence more than anything else is one of the reasons I'm able to stand so close to you right now." Shizuo blinked rapidly to chase away the tears gathering in his eyes and Izaya sighed softly, wondering how someone so harmless could be the same monster from that night.

"Stop being so kind, I don't deserve it..." Shizuo uttered brokenly.

Izaya laughed at Shizuo's words, not because he thought they were funny but because of how untrue they were. "You're wrong, Shizu-chan. This is not kindness, this is me being cruel."

"..."

"I don't even need to punish you anymore for what you did to me that night. Aren't you punishing yourself every day? I know, Shizu-chan, how difficult it is for you to go about your every day life after having done such a terrible thing to me. I know because I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. I know it because when I tried to kill you, the expression on your face told me how relieved you were at the thought of finally escaping this cruel reality where you had turned into a real monster. Given all that, I can safely say that me putting you out of your misery would be an act of kindness. So no, Shizu-chan, I am far from being kind. I am, in fact, quite cruel."

Shizuo appeared to be stunned by his words, so Izaya grabbed him by the arm and led him to the couch so that he could sit down since the broken beast looked unwell. "I'll take care of Kuro," Izaya promised and placed a hand on Shizuo's trembling shoulder. That's right, Shizu-chan. I will show you just how cruel kindness can be.

Chapter 105: Learning to Live

Shizuo didn't seem to be able to react much after all the rambling and panicking he'd done, so Izaya left him to his own devices while he went to look for more information about Kuro. The man didn't have any social media accounts, but that made sense considering the illegal activities the guy was involved in, activities that went from kidnapping to torture and even murder. Back then, the man and his group seemed like the perfect solution to get what he’d wanted, but after calming down and seeing that Shizuo was willing to go as far as to sacrifice his life to save his archenemy, Izaya no longer believed that to be in case. The more he thought about it, the more he hated himself for being so stupid as to get other people involved in his conflict with Shizuo. He should've known better after Slon and Adabashi. Then again, he hadn't known at the time that Slon was still alive.

As he thought about Slon, Izaya raised his hand and gingerly touched the eyepatch he had yet to take off. He was stressed about it every waking moment and he was really close to snapping and taking it off himself without waiting for permission from Shinra. That aside, from his discussion with Vorona, it appeared as though Slon was dead, but they hadn't been able to find the body and because of that Izaya had to admit that he was still worried at times that the man might come back and do something even though Slon had clearly stated that after stabbing him in the eye, they were even.

Realizing that his thoughts were drifting again instead of focusing on the issue at hand, which was to take cake or the Kuro problem, he sighed in frustration and began sending emails to his contacts who might've known something about Kuro that Izaya didn't already know. He also gave Kuro's number to Onishi and asked him to find all he could about the man. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do besides wait, so he stood up and made his way to the couch.

"Have you finally calmed down?" Izaya asked, towering over Shizuo's hunched form.

Shizuo nodded but instead of looking at Izaya, he continued to stare at an invisible spot on the floor.

Izaya sat down on the coffee table in front of Shizuo. "Good. That unsightly expression doesn't suit a beast like you."

Shizuo laughed, but he knew that Izaya could tell that there was no real amusement in his voice. "I know that I'm being pathetic, but that guy was saying things I thought before and it really scared me."

That piqued Izaya's interest. "Like?"

"Like bringing someone down who's always been at the top," Shizuo answered in a low voice, feeling really ashamed for having had such disgusting thoughts.

Izaya wasn't exactly surprised by what Shizuo was saying, but it was strange to hear it from the beast himself, and since he wanted to hear more of Shizuo's thoughts, he decided to ask a question. "Why would you think that? Haven't you always seen me as nothing more than an insect?"

"You're smart, people like you, and you always treat me like I'm some stupid beast, so when I lost myself to my anger and hatred for you, I knew that I had to crush you so that you'd understand once and for all that no matter how high you think you are, someone can still bring you down," Shizuo revealed. He knew that his words would upset Izaya, but he believed that Izaya deserved to know the truth. "Hearing Kuro say the same thing made me realize that I'm just like him, and after coming here again I also realized how shameless I was being to expect help from someone I hurt." Shizuo then raised his head and stared straight into Izaya's good eye, wanting to see just how much disgust Izaya felt for him so that he could never again be tempted to appear before him again. "I was with him for only a few minutes and it was enough to make my skin crawl, so how can you stand being in my presence?"

"We’ve talked about this before but since it looks like you didn’t understand, I will explain it again. Anyway, the answer to your question is quite simple," Izaya replied calmly. "Facing your fears is preferable over running away. It's the only way to move forward. Besides, I don't want to lose to you," he then added and flicked Shizuo on the forehead, "stupid beast." He then pulled his hand back, sighing. "You might have kicked me down, but I'm trying my best to get back up. For a long time, I kept trying to pull you down with me, but after everything that happened, I realized that I will never be able to get back up and move forward unless I let go of the desire to destroy you."

"Iza... ya..." Shizuo uttered in shock, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Don't get me wrong," Izaya continued before Shizuo could say more. "I will never forgive you, I can't, but I am done punishing you for what you did to me. I'm done because I no longer want to spend every waking moment thinking about how much I hate you. I'm done because I'm tired." He could tell that Shizuo was completely shocked by his words, and since he no longer wanted to continue the discussion they were having, he decided to change the subject. "It'd be best to meet up with Kuro and talk things out, but I don't really want to go anywhere near him," Izaya admitted. "Maybe I should call him instead?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Shizuo agreed.

"Alright then," Izaya said and took out the phone from the pocket of his pants.

Shizuo gave him a surprised look. "You mean now?"

"There's no point in postponing it," Izaya said and sat down next to Shizuo. "Lean closer," he then added and moved closer so that Shizuo could hear as well. The beast seemed reluctant, but Izaya encouraged him to do it since he didn't have anything to hide.

"Hello, Orihara-san, to what do I owe the displeasure of your call?" Kuro asked, his tone one of annoyance.

"I thought we agreed that you would no longer bother Heiwajima Shizuo," Izaya reminded him.

"I don't know what you're talking about, seeing how I did no such thing."

"Shizuo told me you two met today."

"And?"

"I canceled the job and even let you keep the money, so stop bothering him."

"Like I said, I did no such thing. I simply ran into him by accident and he attacked me for no reason at all," Kuro explained, not because he cared what Izaya thought, but because it was the truth and he didn't mind explaining it to the guy.

"Shizuo said that you kept telling him how you want to continue what you started back then."

"That's true," Kuro admitted. "And? I don't see the problem with that. I didn't force him to do anything this time around. I simply made him an offer."

Izaya had to admit that Kuro knew exactly what to say to appear as the victim and at the same time piss him off to no end. "So you won't try to force him into anything?"

"Not unless you hire me to do it."

Both Shizuo and Izaya were shocked by Kuro's words, so much that Izaya didn't know how to reply to that. In the end, it was Kuro who broke the silence.

"If there's nothing else..."

Finally, Izaya found his voice, even though he was still pretty shocked by what he'd heard. "No, we're done. Thank you for clearing things up for me."

"No problem," Kuro said and hung up the phone.

Shizuo blinked a few times, trying to process what he'd just heard while Izaya stared at the phone in his hand, both of them wondering if Kuro was being honest or just straight up lying.

"Did he threaten you?" Izaya asked as he pocketed the phone.

"N-No..." Shizuo answered, still trying to get over the shock of what he'd heard.

"I don't get this guy," Izaya mumbled as he moved back to the coffee table.

"There's nothing to get. He's messed up."

"Either way, I'll keep digging into his past, just in case. It's better to be safe than sorry," Izaya decided. "And you, stop saying stupid things like you will never appear before me again. In case you have forgotten, I still need you to help me with my little problem."

"But I―"

"I'm fine being around you. I'm not as weak as you think I am," Izaya said with a huff and tried to prove his point by taking Shizuo's hand and forcing him to grab his wrist. "I can even do this much now without flinching."

"I never thought you were weak, flea," Shizuo assured him as he looked into his eye. "You and Kasuka are the strongest people I know." He then lowered his head, ashamed that he was so weak compared to Izaya. "That guy didn't even really do anything to me, and yet the encounter still messed me up so badly..."

"You're Ikebukuro's strongest," Izaya reminded him, "and because of that, being in such a position must've been pretty shocking for you." His tone had been soft because he understood why Shizuo was still somewhat traumatized by his encounter with Kuro, but that didn't mean that he enjoyed seeing such a pathetic Shizuo. In fact, it annoyed him quite a lot. "However," he then continued and stood up, his tone turning harsh, "nothing happened in the end, so there's really no excuse for you to continue being this pathetic. Pull yourself together already!" he demanded as he raised his foot and crashed it into Shizuo's chest. "I won't tolerate you being like this because of that guy. You should be afraid of no one else but me."

"You sound really twisted, flea," Shizuo said, wincing a bit because of how hard Izaya was pressing down on his chest.

Izaya smirked. "Aren't all gods twisted?"

"You've been quite scary for a while now," Shizuo admitted and forced himself to smile. "Kuro is scary, but you're on a whole new level of terrifying. You're scary because if you decided to slit my throat right now, I wouldn't even fight back."

Izaya was taken aback by Shizuo's words, so much that he stopped pressing down.

"T-That's good!" Izaya said, his voice trembling a bit because of the unexpected confession. "You should spend your time feeling regret over what you did to me, not being scared of that guy."

"I'll never stop being sorry for what I did," Shizuo promised, "so just get better, okay? Go back to being the fearless bastard who wouldn't hesitate to try to cut me every time I pissed him off."

Izaya remained there unmoving for some, the honesty in Shizuo's voice taking him by surprise. It wasn't that he didn't want to be fearless again, but it was hard not to be scared after experiencing such pain and humiliation. Shizuo had taught him what real fear meant, and that wasn't something Izaya could forget any time soon.

"I will, if you stop saying dumb things like how you will never appear before me again. Don't run, Shizu-chan, face your sins, just as I am facing my fears."

"So you really are fine with me being around you?" Shizuo asked again, wanting to make sure that Izaya was being honest about it.

"It's okay since you don't give me creepy looks or try to touch me unless I give you permission. That's actually one of the reasons I'm able to talk to you like this right now. If you looked at me in a creepy way, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near you," Izaya said and finally sat back down on the coffee table, sighing. "Thinking about it like that, I can understand why that guy makes your skin crawl."

Shizuo felt a slight pain in his chest, but since he didn't know why, he chose to ignore it. "You don't have to worry about me doing stuff like that," he assured him. "I'm not stupid enough to believe that you want to have anything to do with me. Still, it's pretty amazing that you can touch me so easily."

"It's not that hard as long as you don't grab me. Your strength is not normal, so if you grabbed me with the intention to hurt me, I wouldn't be able to escape. That's why, every time you touch me, there's the small possibility that you might not let go. After what you did to me, you can't blame me for being cautious even if I believe that you won't do anything bad to me," Izaya explained, his eye searching for the hurt he knew would come every time he doubted Shizuo.

"I understand," Shizuo said even though he hated that Izaya couldn't help but still doubt him a little. "I think it's the same when it comes to you being around my brother. I mostly believe you when you say that you want to help Kasuka, but a small part of me remembers what you did to him and I'm afraid that you being nice to him is just another one of your schemes."

"I see," Izaya said, chuckling. "Then I guess we have no choice but to trust each other and hope for the best, ne?"

"Yeah..."

"Even so," Izaya then continued, his tone turning serious, "we may be talking like this right now, but we're people who have tried to kill each other before."

"I no longer want to kill you though," Shizuo revealed.

"Really?" Izaya asked, surprised that the beast no longer hated him enough to want to kill him, especially after all the bad stuff he'd done to him. "You must at least still hate me though."

Shizuo nodded and then slowly raised his hand with the intention of placing it on Izaya's shoulder, all the while looking for any sign that Izaya might not approve of the action. Fortunately, the flea did, once again proving just how strong he was. "I still very much hate you, bastard," Shizuo assured him, his expression one of resentment mixed with amusement.

Izaya smirked in response, but the hatred on his face was much more intense than on that of his enemy. They continued to stare at each other for a while, until Izaya smacked away Shizuo's hand, flicked open his switchblade and then jumped at Shizuo's throat, pressing the blade to the beast's neck while their faces were mere inches away from one another. "You're pretty easy to read most of the time, but even I can't tell what's deep inside your heart, so Shizu-chan, keep looking at me with those eyes, because if there will ever come a day when you show me something else besides hatred and regret, I won't hesitate to slit your throat."

Shizuo swallowed nervously. "I..."

Izaya stared for a few more seconds and then pulled back, slowly and menacingly pushing the blade back into place and then pocketing the knife. "Anyway," he then chirped as though he hadn't just threatened Shizuo mere moments before, "I talked to Fujita Shizuka and she agreed to see your brother."

"T-That's good," Shizuo said as he raised his hand and touching his neck, fingers twitching.

"And I also talked to Kasu-chan and he said that he will think about it. I guess he just needs some time to get used to the idea, but I'm hopeful."

"Uhm... thanks for doing this for my brother," Shizou said and lowered his hand. Izaya's earlier words were still ringing in his head, making him feel nervous, so he was grateful to the flea for having changed the subject.

"Hey, you know what would be great? If I didn't have to save you every time your brother offered you sweets, so how about we start working on that problem right now?" Izaya chirped and stood up. He made his way to the kitchen, opened the fridge, took the plate with the slice of cake and then went back to the living room, not failing the notice how quickly the beast had turned pale.

"Flea, I can't. I just... I c-can't," Shizuo stuttered pathetically, eyes fixed on the slice of cake as though it could jump up from the plate and attack him at any moment. To his horror, Izaya took a small piece of cake with the spoon and then raised it to his mouth, clearly expecting him to eat it. "Please... I don't... I can't," he whined, suddenly feeling trapped by the flea looming over him.

"For how much longer are you going to continue being this pathetic?" Izaya growled, clearly annoyed by the situation.

Shizuo turned his head to the side, the mere smell of something sweet making him feel nauseous. "S-Shut up! That shit was t-traumatizing," he tried to explain, but it didn't look like Izaya cared because the flea pushed the spoon between his lips, clearly trying to force him to eat.

Izaya pulled back the empty spoon and then backed away a little, hoping that Shizuo would be able to swallow it. "The last thing Kasuka needs right now is to worry about his stupid big brother, so do it for Kasuka's sake if you're not going to do it for yours." He'd expected Shizuo to spit it out or to throw up, but the blond surprised him by swallowing it and then opening his eyes and trying to smirk at him.

"Y-You bastard, are you t-trying to torture me?" Shizuo asked in a trembling voice, a fresh wave of nausea hitting him so hard that he had to cover his mouth. He wanted to get up and run to the bathroom, but he had a feeling that moving around would only make things worse so in the end he chose to stay put. It might have been a dark chocolate cake, but the damn thing was still sweet, or maybe the reason why the taste had hit him so hard was because he hadn't eaten sweets in weeks.

Seeing him like that made Izaya feel a bit guilty for what he'd done, so he raised his hand and placed it on Shizuo's head, hoping that the gesture might soothe him a bit. He shouldn't have cared because Shizuo was his enemy, but he understood how certain things could cause nausea due to trauma and he regretted being the one to trigger it, even if it was Shizuo. That and he knew that showing kindness to Shizuo would only serve to further mess with the beast's head. "There, there, everything will be alright," he said in a soft voice and continued to stroke Shizuo's head. "I know how you feel. I had the same problem but with the smell of tobacco. I hated feeling weak because of something like that, so I forced myself to smoke in order to get over it."

Shizuo didn't say anything for a long time, too busy trying to keep the piece of cake in. Izaya's caresses were soothing, something Shizuo thought was ironic seeing how the flea had been the one to shove the piece of cake into his mouth to begin with. Finally, when it no longer felt like he was in danger of emptying the contents of his stomach, he lowered his hand and raised his head until he could see Izaya's face. "Goddam flea, don't do that again."

Izaya pulled back his hand and sat down on the coffee table. "I didn't think it'd be so bad because the cake isn't that sweet."

"That's probably why I haven't puked all over your floor," Shizuo said with a sigh. "Anyway," he then added as he stood up, "I'd better go before you decide to feed me the rest of that slice of cake."

Izaya chuckled but did nothing to stop him. "I suggest you work on this whenever you can. Like I said, the last thing Kasu-chan needs right now is to figure out that his brother now hates something he used to love and then tries to figure out how that happened. It was a mistake to hire those guys to go after you, and I don't want Kasu-chan to know about it."

"He doesn't need to know," Shizuo agreed. "It's bad enough that you saw that tape..."

"Don't even remind me," Izaya said and stood up as well. "It was shocking enough to watch."

"But you saved me so... thanks," Shizuo said and opened the door. "I'll see you around, flea," he then added and walked out of the apartment, looking forward to getting home and getting some rest after the exhausting day he'd just had.

***

"I really don't understand the nature of your relationship with Orihara Izaya," Kuro said and stepped out of the shadow just as Shizuo took out the key to his apartment. As expected, Shizuo took a step back, the man clearly still affected by what he'd done to him.

"Why are you here?" Shizuo asked, stuck somewhere between feeling angry and afraid.

"I didn't expect you to go rat me out to that guy," Kuro said and approached Shizuo who somehow looked like a deer trapped in the headlights. "Weren't you two supposed to be enemies?"

"T-That's none of your business!" Shizuo growled and raised his arm in an attempt to stop Kuro from coming any closer.

Instead of doing that, Kuro leaned against the door, successfully blocking it. "Do you want to hear something interesting?" he asked and then continued, not really caring whether or not Shizuo answered. "Over the years, there have been several people who wanted to hire me to take the both of you out, but I always refused them."

Shizuo had to admit that he was more than a little bit surprised by the news. "Then why did you accept the job and came after me?"

"Money," Kuro deadpanned. "Orihara Izaya, even though I didn't know at the time that he was the employer, offered us a lot of money. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you two should be grateful I refused those people, and you especially that I stopped when your so-called 'enemy' gave me that call."

"I'm very grateful," Shizuo said sarcastically, not caring that Kuro could probably see the disgust written all over his face. "Because, you know, people should be grateful when they're not kidnapped or killed."

"Yeah, they should," Kuro said and pushed himself away from the door. He then walked in Shizuo's direction, surprised that the man had chosen to stand his ground instead of further backing away.

"So you lied to Izaya about leaving me alone," Shizuo concluded and was considering getting the hell away from there when he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching and he turned around, grateful for the interruption. Standing there was a man dressed in dark blue and carrying a box, he too looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. That's when Shizuo saw the name tag, and even though he knew that it wasn't this guy's fault for delivering the accursed box which had started it all, he still resented him for it.

"H-Heiwajima-san, I have a d-delivery for you, so if you could just t-take this and then s-sign..." the man, whose name was Miki, said in a trembling voice and hoped that this time he wouldn't get to see another terrifying display of strength.

Shizuo took the box, placed it down on the ground and then signed, all the while glaring at the poor delivery guy.

"T-Thank you!" Miki said before he bowed, turned around and then ran the hell out of there, hoping to never again have to deliver something to Heiwajima Shizuo since the man was always glaring at him.

Shizuo watched him disappear around the corner before he turned around to continue his conversation with Kuro, but to his surprise, the man was no longer there. Grateful for the outcome, he picked up the box and went inside, sighing in relief the second he locked the door. He wanted to believe that Kuro would not seek him again, but somehow he had a feeling that the man had no plans of leaving him alone.

Notes:

The delivery guy is the same one from the beginning of the fic, who ended up getting a name after LZonnaArt made a comic for Chapter 1. I really like how she drew him, and since it somehow somehow turned into one of her OCs, I decided to bring him back as thanks for the wonderful comic she drew. You can read it here: ^^

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Chapter 106: The Last to Know

Notes:

I feel so bad right now! I had 95% of this chapter written since months ago but I couldn't get myself to finish it because at first I was getting distracted by games, then I had some problems with my computer and eventually it all ended up with me being too lazy to write. It was like 'why should I write when I can watch this movie instead?' and so on. I'm very sorry. ^^;

I see 25 messages in my Inbox. I'm too scared to even open them. I have a feeling that most of them will be people asking if I have abandoned this fic.

I will NEVER abandon this fic! I will finish it no matter what.

The next day, after work, Shizuo finally found the courage to visit his parents. He felt horrible for having left when his family needed him most, but back then he'd been too messed up by everything that had happened and he didn't have the strength to pretend that he was okay. He could only hope that they would forgive him even though he was an unworthy son always causing them trouble and disappointing them.

"Never disappear like that again!" Namiko said in a trembling voice as she hugged him tightly. They remained like that for a good two minutes until she pulled away, crying. "You can't even imagine how worried I was!"

"I'm sorry," Shizuo quickly apologized, hating himself for having made his mother cry. It was one thing to see her cry for Kasuka and another thing entirely to be the reason she was shedding tears. It reminded him why he'd decided to keep his distance in the first place. His father on the other hand looked surprisingly calm.

"It's good to have you back, son," Kichirou said as he placed a hand on Shizuo's shoulder and squeezed it a bit before pulling it back. "I don't blame you for wanting to be alone for a while, but don't disappear like that again unless you want to give your mother a heart attack. You can't even imagine how worried she was."

"I'm sorry," Shizuo apologized again as he lowered his head, suddenly feeling too ashamed for having ran away to look his father in the eyes.

"What's done is done, now come, let's eat something. Your mother made dinner," Kuchirou said and then made his way to the kitchen, his wayward son following after him.

***

That evening, Izaya went to Shinra's place to talk to him about his eye since the uncertainty was driving him crazy and he could no longer wait, not after torturing himself for days with terrifying scenarios about what might be wrong with it. The doctor wasn't home, so Izaya called him and found out that the man was visiting Kasuka. Desperate to get to the bottom of it, Izaya made his way to Ruri and Kasuka's apartment. It wasn't that he couldn't remove his eyepatch right then and there to find out whether or not he could see, but the truth was that he was too afraid to do it when he was alone and he wanted Shinra to be there with him, especially since it felt as though Shinra was hiding something.

"Hey, Kasu-chan," Izaya saluted, smiling, and stepped inside the apartment, his annoyance momentarily forgotten at the sight of Shizuo's little brother who had become so attached to him.

Kasuka greeted him back. [Hello!]

Shinra poked his head into the hallway. "Ah, so you came here after all."

"You weren't home," Izaya stated, somehow making it sound like an accusation.

"Celty wanted to see Ruri and I figured that I could use the opportunity to see how Kasu-chan was doing. The girls went out to buy the ingredients for dinner though, so they're not here right now," Shinra explained and then sat back down on the couch. "Is there something in particular that you need from me?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Izaya replied, sounding more than a little bit annoyed.

Shinra raised an eyebrow in response since he had no idea what he might've done to piss off his friend.

"When can I take this damn eyepatch off? You keep telling me to wait a little bit longer but I'm sick and tired of hearing you say that! The wait is killing me, so at this point, I'd rather know that I'll never be able to see again than to keep hoping like an idiot!" Izaya shouted, his expression one of worry and frustration.

Kasuka, who had come to deeply dislike any sort of conflict, made himself busy in the kitchen, hoping that the two men would soon calm down.

"I told you to wait because I wanted to make sure that the eye had properly healed!" Shinra shouted in response, but that was mostly a lie since he knew that once Izaya found out the truth, the man would certainly be pissed.

"I'm sure it has!" Izaya said as he ripped off the eyepatch, glaring with his good eye at Shinra while keeping the other closed, trying to find the courage to open it. His heart was beating widly and he almost felt weak at the knees, his nervousness increasing the moment he noticed Shinra's expression turning into one of pure panic.

"You shouldn't be rushing into things," Shinra said in a trembling voice while jumping to his feet. "Put the eyepatch back for now and come to my place later. We'll take it off then, okay?"

Izaya didn't answer. Instead, he swallowed the lump in his throat and opened his eye slowly, a feeling of relief washing over him when he realized that he could see, even if at first it was mostly shadows as his eye adjusted to the light. Slowly, the shadows became more detailed and soon he could see Shinra well enough to be able to tell that it was him, even if the vision in the damaged eye was not as good as it used to be.

"Can you see anything?" Shinra asked, his fear momentarily forgotten. He was hopeful that was the case since it looked as though Izaya's eye was focusing on things and not just moving around aimlessly. He was terrified by what was going to happen next, but he knew that it'd be worth it if Izaya could see still see with that eye.

"Y-Yeah..." Izaya said, sounding emotional since it was hard for him to hide the joy he was feeling at that moment. "Thank you!" he then added as he took a step forward and then another until he was standing right in front of his doctor friend. "Thank you!" he repeated just as he gave Shinra a manly hug, the anger he had previously felt no longer present.

It was right at that moment when Kasuka came back with two glasses of soda and some cookies and he ended up stopping in his tracks once Izaya looked at him and he saw the man's eye.

A feeling of worry rose in the pit of his stomach and Izaya slowly moved away from Shinra and towards the hallway, almost too afraid to find out what it was that had shocked Kasuka. He stopped in front of the mirror but didn't look right away and instead waited a few more seconds while he gathered his courage. Finally, he brusquely turned around, the shock so great that he didn't even know how to react. "W-What is t-this...?" he asked in a trembling voice as he raised a quivering finger to his eye.

"It's my father's way of paying you back for refusing to give him Celty's head when he asked for it. Either that or it's his way of messing with you," Shinra shouted from the living room, not daring to go anywhere near Izaya knowing that the man was armed and dangerous.

Izaya himself was unable to move, still in shock over the fact that he had what looked like an almost red eye. He continued to stare into the mirror, blinking and trying to wrap his head around the fact that he looked like a freak. He was grateful that he could see, but that didn't stop him from feeling anger at the fact that Shingen had messed with him in such a way. He was so focused on the image staring back at him in the mirror that he didn't even notice Kasuka standing somewhere to his right and staring at him until the man spoke.

"Cool," Kasuka uttered, his voice barely above a whisper. So mesmerized was he by the sight that he hadn't even noticed that he'd spoken.

"Kasuka!" Izaya exclaimed the name in both surprise and joy, the annoyance he felt towards the issue with his eye momentarily forgotten as he made his way to Shizuo's brother. "I knew you could do it!" he then added and barely stopped himself from patting Kasuka on the head for doing such a good job.

Confused, Kasuka raised the PDA and typed. [Do what?]

Izaya blinked. "You... talked?"

[I did...?]

"Yes!" Izaya chirped happily, hand still twitching as he fought the impulse to not treat Kasuka like a dog since the only one who deserved to be treated like a mutt was Shizuo. Izaya knew that Kasuka was no weakling and that he could inflict pain if he wanted to, but the man had been hurt and Izaya knew from personal experience that people who had been physically tortured or abused had an issue with touching and he didn't want to be the cause of Kasuka feeling uncomfortable or scared. "Can you say it again for me?"

Kasuka lowered his head, feeling embarrassed. [I don't know what I said.]

"You said the word 'cool'. Do you remember now?"

[I remember thinking that your eye looked cool, but I don't remember saying it,] Kasuka explained.

"Ah, I see. Even so, can you say it again?" Izaya asked, feeling hopeful now that he knew for certain that Kasuka could talk.

Kasuka was feeling really embarrassed, not knowing whether his voice had trembled or if it had sounded pathetic. The last thing he wanted to do was to further embarrass himself, but Izaya sounded so hopeful that it made him want to try since he didn't want to disappoint the man who had been there for him from the moment he had woken up in the hospital. That's why, despite the reluctance he felt, he opened his mouth and tried to form words, any words, but no sounds were coming out, as though something he had no control over stopped him from doing so.

Izaya waited patiently for a few minutes, but he soon realized that Kasuka was torturing himself in an attempt to speak. The man was clearly not ready to take that step, just as Izaya himself was not yet ready to do some of the things that he used to do before Shizuo had violently assaulted him. "You don't have to force yourself," he spoke gently, his voice startling Kasuka. It was only for a moment though, the emotionless mask back into place just as quickly as it had appeared. Knowing that Kasuka needed some space, he gave him one last smile and then turned his attention back to the door leading to the living room. "Cool or not, I'm going to kill Shinra now," he said half serious and half joking as he walked past him and then sprinted into the living room, the game of cat and mouse starting the second Shinra gave in to his fear and chose to run for his life.

"This is not my fault, so please don't do this!" Shinra begged from the other side of the kitchen table as soon as he saw Izaya flicking open his switchblade. "You can wear contact lenses and no one will ever be able to tell that you have a red eye."

"It still doesn't change the fact that you knew and you've been hiding it from me this whole time," Izaya hissed and jumped over the table, his action earning him a girly scream from Shinra who immediately dropped to his knees and started begging for forgiveness.

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't tell you because I knew that you'd be upset and I didn't want you to have to deal with this too on top of everything else," Shinra said in a terrified voice as he continued to stare at the floor. Regardless of how close they had become, it didn't change the fact that Izaya was a dangerous man capable of going to extreme lengths to punish those he thought had wronged him. However, Shinra didn't believe that he'd done anything wrong. In fact, he felt proud for having found a way to give Izaya's eye back. "You know what? I regret nothing," Shinra continued in a more confident tone, this time daring to raise his head and look Izaya in the eyes. "I did everything in my power to save your eye, which is exactly what a doctor and a friend should do. If you hate it that much, then take it out and go back to being blind in one eye. I'm done apologizing for helping you."

Izaya said nothing. Instead, he continued to glower at Shinra for a long time, the man glowering back at him in response. Finally, after what felt like forever, he grabbed Shinra by the arm and pulled him up, sighing. "It's not that I'm not grateful, because I am, but I hate that you lied to me."

"I didn't lie," Shinra corrected him. "I merely didn't tell you everything."

"I forgive you," Izaya mumbled unhappily since he was still pretty angry about the whole thing but at the same time knew that he couldn't really hate Shinra for what the doctor had done. He gave Shinra once last angry look and then turned around and made his way back to Kasuka who was still in the hallway, looking slightly agitated because of how much the man had come to hate violence.

[Please don't be angry anymore,] Kasuka quickly typed. [It really looks cool!]

"If Kasu-chan says that it looks cool, then it looks cool," Izaya said with a small smile. "Now let's go back into the living room, okay? There won't be any more fighting tonight."

Kasuka nodded and was just about ready to follow Izaya when the bell rang, the unexpected sound startling him enough to make him jump a little since he was still agitated because of the fight between Izaya and Shinra.

"It must be the girls," Shinra said as he dashed into the hallway and past the two men, looking forward to taking his beloved Celty in his arms even if she hadn't been gone for long.

"Don't tell them anything about this," Izaya asked as he proceeded to put the eyepatch back on. He'd had enough for one evening and the last thing he needed was two monsters to see just how much of a freak he had become.

"Welcome back, dar―" Shinra started as he opened the door and then abruptly stopped once he saw who was standing there. "Oh, it's... you. Come in," he then added, eye slightly twitching since he wasn't used to not going off on Shizuo whenever they met.

Izaya held his breath, expecting the two men to fight, but that didn't happen, which led to him blinking in surprise when Shinra merely passed him by, the doctor clearly deciding to avoid conflict. Izaya didn't know if it was because of his request or because Kasuka was there as well, but nonetheless he was grateful for the odd occurrence.

Shizuo felt uncomfortable since he hadn't expected both Shinra and Izaya to be visiting, but there was nothing he could do about it but endure and hope to get out of the situation in one piece. The beginning looked promising, seeing how Shinra hadn't berated him like he usually did, but he was still worried since the last thing he wanted was for Kasuka to get upset. And Shizuo knew his brother; knew how upset Kasuka got whenever someone would make his big brother angry. Kasuka might have been able to hide it in the past, but his most recent trauma made it so that he could no longer hide behind an emotionless mask with the too many cracks Adabashi beat into it. Given the situation, he decided that the best course of action would be for him to get the hell out of there.

[Nii-san, welcome!]

"Thanks, but I'm not staying," Shizuo said and almost regretted his words when he read the disappointment in his little brother's eyes. Still, it didn't change the fact that he had to get out of there as quickly as possible before Shinra ended up snapping and saying something that might upset Kasuka. "Mom asked me to bring you this," he said and handed Kasuka the bag he'd been carrying. "It's homemade curry, just the way you like it."

[Thank you,] Kasuka simply replied. He wanted his brother to stay and eat together with him, but he understood that Shizuo might feel uncomfortable with both Izaya and Shinra around. [Come back another time then.]

"I will," Shizuo promised and gave him a hug. "Enjoy the curry and I'll see you soon, okay?"

[I will.]

"I'm off too," Izaya said as he grabbed Shizuo by the arm and dragged him out of the apartment. He then turned to Kasuka, smiling. "See ya around, Kasu-chan."

Kasuka waved goodbye and watched them go. He could only hope that everything would be alright since he didn't trust those two to not end up fighting for one reason or another.

Izaya waved back just as he disappeared around the corner before turning to Shizuo, his smile gone. "Well, that was close. I was afraid that Shinra might go off and upset Kasu-chan," he said and pressed the elevator button.

"I talked to Shinra a few days ago," Shizuo revealed.

Izaya's head snapped in Shizuo's direction and he stared for a while, eyes wide and a shocked expression on his face. "What did you talk about?"

"I asked him to give me a chance to prove that I won't hurt you again."

"And he agreed?" Izaya squeaked in surprise.

Shizuo nodded. "It wasn't easy, but he eventually agreed. To be honest, I still can't believe that he did."

"I... I think that it's because I asked him to stop. Him always telling me to stay away from you because you couldn't be trusted wasn't exactly helping me after the whole Adabashi thing," Izaya revealed since he didn't see a problem with Shizuo knowing about it. He then sighed, relieved that the doctor had listened to his request. "Anyway, where you off to now?"

"I'm going home I guess."

"There's something I need to buy in Ikebukuro, so do you mind if I join you?" Izaya asked, smirking.

Shizuo almost wanted to say no because Izaya's expression was just scary, like it had something to do with him, but he nodded anyway, knowing better than to defy Izaya when the flea looked like that.

***

"You must be kidding me," Shizuo slightly growled as he took a step backwards. They were standing in front of a store selling cakes, ice cream and anything else that could be considered sweet, thus making it the last place Shizuo wanted to be at.

"I'm only going to buy some dark chocolate," Izaya explained innocently, as though he wasn't going to torture Shizuo by forcing him to eat it. He was still in a pretty bad mood because of the eye, even though he also felt relieved, and figured that he should make Shizuo feel just as miserable as he was feeling. He knew it was wrong and that he shouldn't be doing this to the beast even though Shizuo had done much worse to him, but if it made him feel better, he didn't mind being the bad guy.

Before Izaya even had a chance to go inside, Shizuo turned around and started running away, the unexpected reaction shocking him quite a lot since he didn't know the beast as being someone who ran away. It only took him a couple of seconds of gaping like a fish before he got over the shock and started chasing after Shizuo, a part of him rejoicing at the chance of being the one doing the chasing for once instead of always being the one getting chased.

Izaya couldn't help but smile at first and then smirk as the realization dawned at him that he was seriously chasing around Ikebukuro's strongest. The people who recognized them looked quite shocked as well, some of them even trying to take pictures or record it but failing to do so because of how fast the two enemies ran through Ikebukuro's streets. The best part about the whole thing however was that Izaya was steadily closing the distance between the two of them, proof that even though he'd been caught once, he was still the fastest. He was so close that he could almost touch him, but to his surprise, Shizuo slowed down just a tiny bit, Izaya immediately taking advantage of the situation and grabbing Shizuo and then pinning him to a wall by pushing his forearm into the beast's neck and flicking open his switchblade with his left hand.

"That was unbefitting of a beast like you," Izaya teased. "I hope you now know that you can't run away from me. I'll always catch you, Shizu-chan."

"Ugh, I don't feel so good," Shizuo moaned as he raised a hand and covered his mouth with it.

Izaya immediately jumped away, figuring that it was better to be safe than sorry. Shizuo looked indeed paler than usual, which most likely meant that the beast wasn't lying about feeling sick. "Seriously, Shizu-chan, just how bad is this revulsion you feel towards sweets?"

"It's... it's not that," Shizuo said as he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, trying really hard not to throw up. Luckily, they were in an alley, which meant that people wouldn't see him looking so pathetic.

"What is it then?" Izaya asked, feeling a lot more curious than annoyed now that he knew it wasn't related to the chocolate he said he'd buy.

"My mom... she made me eat for like the whole month that I was away," Shizuo answered and shook his head. "Running on a full stomach wasn't a very good idea." As expected, the flea burst into laughter, the bastard enjoying his pain, as it was natural. "Yeah, yeah, keep laughing," Shizuo mumbled unhappily. At least he was starting to feel a bit better since he was no longer running, but he still made a mental note to never visit his parents again around dinner time. "You done laughing?" he asked with a sigh once Izaya had quieted down.

"Yes, I'm done now," Izaya said while trying to catch his breath. "Thanks for the good laugh, I needed it."

"Why? What happened?" Shizuo asked. It was almost hard to believe that he of all people would worry about Izaya, but a lot of things had happened between them and he no longer was the person who would not give a shit whether Izaya lived or died. If anything, he wanted Izaya to be happy and to live a peaceful life even though he knew that it was most likely impossible.

"Nothing," Izaya said with a flick of his hand, but it didn't look like the beast believed him.

"Tell me what's bothering you, maybe I can help," Shizuo offered as he slowly stood up.

"Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?" Izaya asked, sounding slightly amused.

"Things have changed," Shizuo replied with a shrug before he slowly stood up. "We have changed."

Izaya snorted, Shizuo's comment irritating him more than he wanted to admit. "I very much liked my old self, thank you very much," he hissed, his tone sounding spiteful. He wanted to say more, but he realized how pointless it would be to go into it again since it was something they had talked about more times than he wished to remember. "Forget I said anything," Izaya then muttered as he turned around, trying to push down the anger threatening to surface. "What's done is done."

"I have to go," Shizuo said as he ran a hand over his face. "I have some things to unpack since the landlady sent me a few boxes with the stuff I left behind when I came back to Tokyo." The truth was that he only had one box, but Izaya didn't need to know that. Luckily, his attempt at changing the subject seemed to work because Izaya turned around, looking much calmer than before.

"I have a few things to do as well," Izaya replied, grateful for the change in subject. Without another word he turned around and started walking away, looking forward to getting home so that he could take the eyepatch off and simply enjoy being able to see with more than one eye. He was still pretty upset about what Shingen had done, but the relief he felt at being able to see again with both eyes was enough to put him in a relatively good mood. It was like Shinra had said. If he wore contact lenses, no one else would ever know that his best friend's father had turned him into a freak.

Notes:

LZonnaArt made this Blind Fury comic and I can't stop laughing every time I see it because it's just too perfect!

Here it is: One Time

Thank you for the wonderful art! <3

Chapter 107: Collapse and Crush

Three days after finding out that he could see with his previously damaged eye, Izaya finally decided to go and get a new pair of colored contact lenses that would allow him to get rid of the eyepatch and cover that ugly red that Shingen thought would be funny to give him. He would've gone sooner, but Kasuka kept insisting to go along and Izaya was worried that someone might recognize the actor. That's why, even though he finally agreed, he decided to go to the store twenty minutes before it closed so that they wouldn't run into many people inside and also because it would be harder for people to recognize Kasuka at night.

"Keep your head down," Izaya reminded Kasuka when the man got distracted and ended up raising his head.

Kasuka immediately obeyed and Izaya sighed softly, thinking for the millionth time that evening what a bad idea it had been to bring Kasuka along with him. He couldn't be sure, but he had a feeling that Kasuka was desperate for a distraction since Ruri was working most days and he didn't want to be alone with only his dark thoughts as company. Kasuka used to be a very active person and Izaya understood him better than most since he himself had been forced in the past to remain indoors because of things he didn't even want to think about at that moment.

"I hope we can find a color that's really close to my own," Izaya said with a smile.

[I'm sure we will,] Kasuka typed and then showed it to Izaya, this time being careful as to not raise his head. The hoodie and the longer hair helped a bit, but that didn't mean that he was safe. He was terrified by the thought of anyone recognizing him, but the need to just live a little as opposed to staying inside the apartment and drowning in nightmares of his time with Adabashi was far stronger than any fear he felt at that moment.

"We're here," Izaya chirped and then waited for Kasuka go in before entering as well. As expected, Kasuka moved behind him, the man obviously hoping to attract as little attention as possible. Luckily, there were only two other people inside, one busy trying out a pair of glasses while the other was on his way out. "Let's look at these," Izaya said and then stopped to check the contact lenses with natural eye colors.

[I think these are closest to your eye color,] Kasuka typed and pointed to a pair of glasses that were a red-ish brown.

"Aren't they a bit too red?" Izaya asked as he leaned closer to take a better look.

[Your eyes are a brown-red, so no, I don't think they're too red.]

"Welcome! How may I help you?" a young woman asked as she approached them.

Kasuka immediately lowered his head and turned slightly to the side to make sure that she couldn't see his face well.

"I'm looking for a pair of contact lenses that are close to my natural color," Izaya said and moved between her and Kasuka to make sure that he would get her full attention.

"I see," the woman said and stared into his eye for a few seconds before moving behind the counter and taking out a couple of pairs of contact lenses from a box. "Your eye color is unusual, but I believe this one is closest to what you're looking for," she said and handed him a box.

Izaya took it, turned to Kasuka and raised it near his uncovered eye. "What do you think?"

[It's perfect. I don't think people will even notice unless they get really close.]

"You're right. These aren't good enough," Izaya said with a frown before he turned back to the woman and placed the box on the counter.

Seeing that Izaya and the woman were talking about how he could get a custom pair of contact lenses, Kasuka decided to wait outside since there was nothing else for him to do there. As usual, there were many people on the streets, and even though Kasuka knew that he should keep his head down, he still couldn't help but raise it and look at the people passing by, wishing that he too would look as though he didn't have a care in the world. The fact that a few even looked at him but did not recognized him was a relief, but at the same time it made him worry even more that Adabashi had irreversibly changed him and that he would never be the same again.

Or so he thought, because not even a couple of minutes later someone stopped when their eyes met and Kasuka immediately turned around, realizing how stupid it had been for him to not listen to Izaya.

"Hey, I know you, don't I?" the man said as he approached him.

Kasuka quickly reached for the door, thinking it'd be best to go back inside, but the man grabbed him by the wrist and spun him around.

"It is you!" the man continued, his lips set into a disgusting smile. "You guys remember him as well, don't you?" he then asked as he turned to the other three men who were with him.

"I'm not sure..." the one wearing a red jacket said as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"It's Shizuo's brother," another one said, this man too smirking as he walked closer. "That guy we used to beat up all the time."

"Oh yeah," the fourth one recalled, "the one we couldn't get to scream that easily."

Close to panicking, Kasuka tried to push the man away and free his wrist, but the one in the red jacket grabbed his other arm and he was dragged away from the door and then pushed into the nearest wall.

"Are you guys idiots or what? Don't you know who he is?" the one who first noticed Kasuka said with a roll of his eyes. "He's Hanejima Yuuhei."

The others gasped in surprise but by then Kasuka was too lost in a sea of fear to be able to make out their words. He knew that he should try to free himself, but after so many times of trying the same with Adabashi and failing, each time getting hurt worse as punishment for his transgression, he couldn't get his body to react. It was like the sadist had instilled within him a fear that he couldn't overcome and that had turned him into a coward. A few moments later they started dragging him away and he was feeling dizzy because even though they weren't Adabashi, these men too had hurt him in the past. Unlike the bastards who seemed to find the situation funny if their cheerful voices and laughter was anything to go by, he was horrified knowing that Adabashi had broken him so badly that he couldn't even get his body to react so that he could free himself and get the hell away from there.

"We've missed our punching bag, haven't we boys?" the man who had recognized him first said and then laughed maliciously.

"Won't we get in trouble if we hurt Hanejima Yuuhei? I mean, the guy is famous now," one of them said, sounding fearful.

"He never said anything to anyone, so I doubt he'll start now," the one in the red jacket said with a shrug.

An alley came into view and Kasuka barely suppressed the whimper threatening to slip past his dry lips. He did however let out a grunt of pain once they entered and one of them punched him in the stomach. They finally released him and he fell down on his knees, gasping and trying to get some air back into his lungs.

"I see you're still as pathetic now as you were back then."

And you're just as big of an asshole as you were back then, Kasuka thought just before the one he recalled as being called Genjiro kicked him in the face.

"Actually, I take it back. You're far more pathetic now than you were back then."

"Maybe that guy really broke him," the one in the red jacket mused as he grabbed Kasuka by the hair and brought their faces closer together.

Kasuka remembered this man very well. His name was Hatsuo, and unlike the others who didn't pretend to be nice people, this one's fake kindness was disgusting.

"Aww, on second thought, the poor guy has suffered enough already so maybe we should let him go," Hatsuo said and patted Kasuka on the head.

It was always the same, with the guy pretending to be the voice of reason in the beginning only to end up hurting him the worst out of all of them. The other two men were mostly silent, but that's because they were too dumb to even taunt. Just like back then, they were nameless faces in a crowd of horrible people who hated Shizuo and who instead of confronting his brother like men, they were taking it out on him.

"We're not letting him go," Genjiro stated with a roll of his eyes, not in the mood to hear more of Hatsuo's fake concern. "Not yet anyway."

Hatsuo released Kasuka's hair and took a step back, frowning. "Look at him though. He looks like a broken dog. He can't even bark, let alone bite anymore."

Genjiro sighed in disappointment. "Looks like it. I'm kind of annoyed knowing that in the end, it wasn't us who broke him. Even so, I'm still going to enjoy beating the shit out of him, the fucking freak."

Kasuka barely had time to raise his arms to protect his head from a barrage of kicks to the face. Unlike in the past, the man seemed to no longer care that Shizuo might see the damage on his little brother's face.

"Man, he's pathetic. I bet his girlfriend will soon dump him if she hasn't already," Genjiro said, laughing, as he stepped back to let the other two men have a bit of fun with their punching bag.  "I mean, who would want to be with this broken and pathetic freak?"

Kasuka wanted to tell them that it wasn't true, that Ruri loved him and that she would never abandon him, but the truth was that a part of him believed the things Genjiro was saying and that hurt more than the blows and kicks his body was receiving from Genjiro's minions.

"You know, if Ruri-chan is feeling lonely, I can pay her a visit. I'll make her feel good," Genjiro promised.

As the name of his beloved reached his ears, Kasuka froze, but then something within him snapped and he punched back, hitting the guy on his right square in the face and kicking the other hard enough to knock him off his feet. He could take a hit or two and even torture, but what he was not willing to stand was anyone even thinking about hurting Ruri.

"He broke my nose!" one of the man whined pathetically as he threw his head back in the vain hope of stopping the bleeding.

"Looks like the dog still has some bite," Genjiro chuckled as he pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning against and raised his fists, looking forward to beating up Hanejima Yuuhei within an inch of his life. His smirk faltered a bit though when the man didn't react and instead continued to simply stand there, eyes hidden behind the hood covering his head. There was something eerie about Hanejima Yuuhei, but since Genjiro couldn't quite put his finger on what that was, he ignored the alarms going off in his head and moved to punch him in the face.

Kasuka easily blocked the man's fist and then kicking him hard in the stomach, his emotionless facade disappearing for only a moment to reveal the disgust he felt towards the human filth before him. A moment later it was back in place and he was once again the freak these men were accusing him of being.

Hatsuo tried to hit him in the head with a metal pipe he'd picked up from the ground, but Kasuka dodged it and then kicked the man in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. The other two men's expressions were ones of shock mixed with fury, but they quickly recovered and attacked as well, broken nose and stomach pain forgotten and replaced by indignation and anger at having their victim fight back.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Genjiro shouted in rage as he joined the other three men trying to bring down the freak. Unfortunately, their hits barely landed. If anything, it looked like they were badly losing the fight.

The more he beat them up, the better Kasuka felt, so much that he was starting to see Adabashi in every one of them. After being treated like an animal for so long, it felt good to finally fight back and make the ones who had hurt him feel some of the pain he'd experienced.

Realizing that they had awakened a beast, Hatsuo tried to escape, but the freak that was Hanejima Yuuhei grabbed him just as he exited the alley and kicked him hard in the knee, breaking his leg. He screamed in agony and fell to the ground, his screams only intensifying when the beast grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back inside, dragging his injured body back to his friends who were moaning in agony as they cradled various parts of their bodies.

Genjiro's face was such a bloody mess that he could barely see anymore, but he still found the strength to throw himself at Kasuka, hoping to pin him down. Unfortunately, he could not restrain the freak and he ended up being the one pinned down and getting punched over and over again until his vision went black and he fell into unconsciousness.

Now that Genjiro was out, Kasuka turned his attention to Hatsuo who immediately started begging for his life like the pathetic coward that he was. His pleas fell on deaf ears though and the man ended up screaming again when Kasuka proceeded to stomp him under his feet.

Kasuka was still hitting Hatsuo when he heard footsteps entering the alley and voices that he couldn't really make out. In the next moment he was shoved against the nearest wall and it took him over a full minute of fighting tooth and nail to get away to realize that the ones trying to restrain him were police officers. The men were trying to talk to him, but Kasuka couldn't make out their words with how loudly his heart was beating inside his chest. He did however stop fighting and allowed himself to get dragged to the police car and then roughly shoved inside, his whole body still thrumming with bloodlust even after spilling some of the crimson liquid in that dark and dirty alley.

The police officers who were with him in the car were talking amongst themselves, but Kasuka didn't even bother to try to follow their conversation. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to calm down enough to not have a panic attack at the thought that he might end up in prison after nearly beating those guys to death. He didn't think he could survive being imprisoned again.

Soon the car stopped and he was pulled out of it and taken up the stairs and into the police station, one of the officers inside emptying his pockets and then asking him about his ID. Kasuka didn't reply, which led to him being moved to the interrogation room and his hands being cuffed to the table there. A man entered a few minutes later, but Kasuka didn't even bother to look up at him. Instead, he kept his head down, his eyes glued to bloody knuckles that were finally starting to hurt now that he was no longer in fight or flight mode.

"It's my daughter's birthday today. I couldn't be home because I had to work, but I was hoping to at least see her before she went to sleep. Now I won't even be able to wish her a happy birthday because some stupid punks got into a fight. What did you idiots fight over? Did one of them steal your girl or what? Hey, are you even listening to me??" the man shouted.

Kasuka made himself smaller, fear rearing its ugly head again as it always did lately whenever it felt as though he might end up getting hurt.

"Alright, I see you don't want to answer yet, so how about we start with your name?"

Kasuka didn't reply.

"Give me your damn name, now!" the man demanded and banged his fist against the table.

The sound startled Kasuka so much that he jumped out of his seat, the man's obvious anger sending his body back into fight or flight mode for the second time in a single night. It hurt like hell, but Kasuka couldn't stop trying to pull his hands out of the cuffs.

"Oi, what the hell are you doing?" the man growled and stood up.

Kasuka pulled harder in response, the cuffs around his wrists cutting so deep into his skin that blood started to trickle down his hands.

"Stop that!" the man ordered and was about to grab him by the nap and forced him back down on the chair when the door opened and Sawazaki Kotaro walked in.

"Akagi-san, I'll take it from here," the man half requested and half ordered once he saw that his colleague had clearly triggered in Heiwajima Kasuka what looked like a panic attack.

"Sawazaki-san, this is not your department," Akagi reminded him. As much as he wanted to go home to his daughter, he didn't like being ordered around by someone much younger than him.

"Akagi-san, please step out and I will explain everything." Sawazaki then turned to Kasuka, his voice softening. "Hanejima-san, please calm down. No one will hurt you, okay? You're safe now." He then pretty much pushed the other officer out of the interrogation room, thinking that it was best to give the traumatized actor some time to calm down.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Akagi growled.

"That man inside is Hanejima Yuuhei."

"What?! Seriously?"

Sawazaki nodded. "He's not the type to get into fights without a reason. He must have been attacked and he fought back."

"He didn't just fight back, he beat four people to a bloody pulp," Akagi reminded him with a frown.

"The man was tortured for weeks! Does he look fine to you? You saw how he reacted just now when he felt threatened by you."

Akagi's frown deepened and he was starting to feel bad for having taken his anger out on the man. "So you think he acted in self-defense and then couldn't stop once he got the upper hand?"

"I'm sure of it. Please let me talk to him. If he's the one who started it, he will pay for it, but if he beat up those men in self-defense, then he's a victim and we shouldn't treat him like a criminal."

"Alright, then you handle this mess. I'm going home."

"I will, thank you for understanding," Sawazaki said and bowed his head. He then waited for Akagi to leave before going in again, this time grateful that he found a much calmer-looking Hanejima Yuuhei.

"I apologize for my colleague. He didn't mean any harm. He was simply trying to do his job. You have to understand that he has to deal quite often with people who get into fights and who then refuse to cooperate once they are apprehended," Sawazaki said and slowly moved towards Kasuka, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "I'll take off the cuffs since there's no need for them, okay?" He waited until Kasuka nodded and then took a small key out of the pocket of his jacket and released the man's bloody wrists, still careful about not making any sudden moves. He did wince in sympathy though once he saw the damage. "I called your brother as soon as I realized who you were, so he should be here soon. Meanwhile, would you mind telling me what happened?"

Kasuka froze the moment he heard that Shizuo had been notified about what happened. He would've much preferred if no one ever found out that he'd lost it and nearly killed those men, but at the same time he was grateful that Sawazaki had called Shizuo instead of his parents. He could deal with Shizuo being worried about him, but he could not deal with seeing his mother cry again.

"Hanejima-san, what happened?" Sawazaki repeated when he didn't receive an answer.

Kasuka blinked, for a moment forgetting that Sawazaki was even there to begin. Figuring that it was best to cooperate, he gestured that he needed something to write and hoped that the man understood what he needed.

"Oh, right," Sawazaki said and handed him a few sheets of paper and a pen. "My apologies, I had forgotten that..." he started and then changed the subject, not wanting to embarrass the man. "So what happened exactly?" Patiently, he waited for Kasuka to finish writing, wincing further whenever more blood would get smeared across the paper. A few minutes later the paper was pushed in his direction and he read it, his heart further breaking at the knowledge that the man before him had been beaten and bullied since way before Adabashi had even kidnapped him.

"I see. It sounds to me like self-defense, but that's not up for me to decide. I don't believe you will end up in prison, but I'm sure those men will try to get as much money from you as possible. They might even threaten to ruin your image by going public, but that's not something I can help you with. I recommend getting a good lawyer."

Kasuka nodded in understanding, already feeling sick at the thought of everyone finding out about how he'd lost it and nearly killed those men.

"I can't release you until your brother gets here, but there's someone outside who wants to see you. Should I let Orihara Izaya in?" To his surprise, the actor nodded, once again reminding him how little he understood about the relationship between Orihara Izaya and the Heiwajima brothers. "Okay then," he said and stood up. He gave Kasuka one last look and then walked out the door, heading towards the place where Orihara Izaya was anxiously waiting.

"Is he okay? Can I see him now?" Izaya asked as soon as he saw Sawazaki enter his field of vision.

"He's got a few injuries but nothing life-threatening. Also, he seems to know the people he fought, but I'll let him explain if he so wishes. You can see him now," Sawazaki said and then led him to the interrogation room, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw how genuinely worried Izaya appeared to be.

"I shouldn't have left you alone," Izaya said through gritted teeth as he took Kasuka's bloody hands into his own. He then turned to Sawazaki, his expression morphing from worried to annoyed in the span of a fraction of a second. "He needs his PDA."

Sawazaki nodded and left the room, leaving the two men alone.

"They're going to pay for this," Izaya promised.

Kasuka sighed softly and finally allowed himself to relax. The truth was that he felt safe with Izaya there. The man was not exactly a good person, but nor was he the terrible human being everyone else thought he was.

The door opened and Sawazaki walked in, the man not saying anything as he placed the PDA on the table and then left the room just as quietly as he'd entered.

[I'm sorry,] was the first thing Kasuka wrote.

"For?"

[For not listening to you.]

Izaya sighed softly and sat down on the chair. "I understand how you feel. I too had no choice but to stay inside for a long time, and even though the world outside my apartment seemed like such a scary place, I still wanted to go out there if only to convince myself that your brother hadn't completely destroyed the person that I used to be."

[I'm sorry,] Kasuka wrote again, feeling as though his heart was getting thorn to shreds at being reminded about what Shizuo had done.

"It wasn't your fault, Kasu-chan, so you have nothing to apologize for," Izaya reminded him in a soft voice. "Besides, I'm okay now, or at least as okay as I can be after what happened."

Kasuka nodded, but he didn't quite believe the man. He couldn't understand how anyone could be okay after something like that. He'd only been tortured and that had been enough to crush his spirit and turn him into someone completely different.

"Sawazaki-san told me that you knew those people," Izaya said in an attempt to change the subject. "That's all he told me though. Who are they?" To Izaya's surprise, Kasuka lowered his head and kept the PDA in his bloody hands, not really typing anything. "Kasu-chan?" he asked, now confused as to why the man wasn't replying. "Please tell me who they are. I'll make sure they will never bother you again."

[I nearly killed them,] Kasuka eventually wrote.

"Just tell me who they are," Izaya insisted and then waited for what seemed like forever until Kasuka finally started typing again.

[They were some of the guys you sent after my brother back when you two were in high school.]

As soon as he finished reading it, Izaya felt sick to his stomach. That wasn't something he was proud of, and to know that he was indirectly responsible for what had happened that evening made him feel that much worse. He wasn't one to apologize very often, or at all, but at that moment he could barely stop himself from doing it. Apologizing meant that he thought he'd done something wrong, and Izaya didn't like admitting ever having been wrong about anything. Instead, he swallowed the lump in his throat, ran a hand through his hair and forced himself to smile. "You showed them though, no? You showed them what happens if they mess with the grown up version of the teenager they took their frustrations on." Kasuka nodded, but Izaya could tell that the man wasn't exactly proud of himself.

[That woman you mentioned before...]

"Fujita Shizuka?" Izaya asked, sounding hopeful.

[I would like to talk to her.]

"Sure, no problem, I'll make it ha―"

"Kasuka, are you alright?" Shizuo asked, bursting into the room and heading straight for his little brother, ignoring the accursed flea who had failed to protect Kasuka.

[I'm fine, nii-san,] Kasuka tried to assure him, but it was hard to type with how tightly Shizuo was hugging him.

"I'm going to get you out of here," Shizuo promised in a surprisingly calm tone even though on the inside he was one step away from murdering those men and the flea who failed to protect his little brother. "Sawazaki is writing your statement as we speak. All you have to do is sign it."

Kasuka nodded, but by the pained look Shizuo was giving him, it was obvious that his brother was trying to gather the courage to tell him something.

"You're also... they… they need to take a few pictures," Shizuo revealed, his heart breaking even further and his anger nearly hitting boiling point when he saw Kasuka's barely noticeable panicky expression.

No! No! No! Kasuka kept thinking as he shook his head, not wanting anyone else to see the damage Adabashi had inflicted upon his body.

The door opened a moment later and Sawazaki walked in, carrying the documents Kasuka needed to sign. "Please read them before you sign."

"I'll make sure he signs them," Shizuo promised and then waited for the man to leave before turning to Izaya. "Why are you still here?"

Izaya opened his mouth to say something, but no words would come one.

"Leave!" Shizuo hissed.

This time, Izaya stood up, turned on his heels and walked out, his mind set on one thing: he wasn't going to let those bastards get away with it.

Chapter 108: Fatal Error

A few hours had passed since Izaya left the police station and he was still seething with anger, but it wasn't that surprising seeing how he was going through everything he knew about those four bastards while imagining all the thing he'd love to do to them. It had been easy to find them all with Iwasaki's help, and he made a mental note to send the man some more money for once again making his work easier. Iwasaki was what others would call a corrupt cop, but Izaya didn't exactly see him like that since the man wasn't helping criminals hurt innocent people. If anything, the man only helped him when either no one got hurt or only criminals would end up getting hurt as a result of his actions. Izaya somewhat admired him for that, even if he himself was not above hurting innocents to get what he wanted, the proof being that he'd used Kasuka to hurt Shizuo. He regretted it, but it didn't change the fact that he'd done it and that he was still somewhat doing it. It wasn't that he didn't want to help Kasuka, because he truly did, but one of the reasons why he was doing it was because the closer Kasuka got to him, the further the man strayed away from a brother who was not that different from the monsters who had hurt him. Izaya was a lot of things, but selfless wasn't one of them.

Sighing, he got up, stretched his arms and then headed into the kitchen, thinking that it'd be a good idea to make some coffee before going back to planning his revenge against those four assholes. Unfortunately, before he even had a chance to grab the coffee out of the kitchen cabinet, his doorbell rang, making him blink in surprise since he hadn't been expecting anyone so late at night. For a second, he felt a shiver run down his spine at the thought of Shizuo paying him a visit to punish him for failing Kasuka, but he shook his head, reminding himself that Shizuo was no longer that person who would hurt him just because he was angry at him. The beast had changed; both of them had. Slowly, he made his way to the door, hoping that whoever it was would go away quickly so that he could get back to what he was doing. After all, time was of the essence since those four men could at any time talk and get Kasuka in trouble with the press.

"Shiki-san," Izaya spoke the man's name in surprise, not expecting the Awakusu-Kai executive to show up at his apartment in the middle of the night. "Did something happen?" On top of that, there was another Awakusu-Kai member with him, a man Izaya had often seen driving the cars of the higher ups in the organization.

"You could say that," Shiki said as he walked into the apartment without invitation and motioned for the other man to do the same.

"I'm a little busy right now, so maybe you can come back in a few days and then I'll―"

"It can't wait," Shiki cut him off sharply. "I wouldn't be bothering you at this hour if it wasn't important."

"I understand," Izaya finally conceded and motioned for the two men to sit down. Whatever it was, he would take care of it after he was done with the four scumbags who had hurt Kasuka. "What do you need?"

"As you may have already known, Sato Jinpachi here has been with the Awakusu-Kai for at least a decade. He's a loyal member of the organization and someone we trust with sensitive information."

Izaya simply nodded and then waited for Shiki to continue, but the one who spoke next was Sato Jinpachi himself.

"Orihara-san, not many people know, but I have a son. Soon after he was born, his mother left me when she found out what I was doing for a living. Unlike me, the kid grew up in a normal environment, not knowing that his real father was a member of the Yakuza. I've respected his mother's wishes and kept my distance from him, and because of that I never expected her to show up at my door one day, sobbing and begging me to find whoever had broken our son and make them pay," the man explained, his voice trembling with emotion.

"What happened? Izaya asked, now intrigued by the story.

"What didn't happen..." the man murmured in a broken voice as he raised his hands and covered his face with them, the horror of remembering seeing his son so broken too much for him to even bear thinking about it. "He was... they..." he tried to explain, but he chocked and it took everything in his power to not break into sobbing. He might've been a hardened Yakuza, but he was still a father and seeing his son in pain hurt more than any injury he'd ever gotten while working for the Awakusu-Kai.

"Things that shouldn't ever be done to a man, or anyone else for that matter," Shiki explained as best as he could without outright saying it.

Izaya shifted uncomfortably on the couch, the whole thing hitting too close to home. "Any suspects?"

Sato took a deep breath, trying to calm down enough to answer the man's questions. "Reiji is a good kid. He doesn't hang out with any suspicious people and he doesn't have a violent bone in his body."

"Has anything out of the ordinary happen during the past few weeks? No matter how insignificant, it might just be the key to finding those men."

"Now that you mention it..." Sato started, looking thoughtful, "his girlfriend said that about a week ago Reiji got into verbal argument with a guy who was bothering her. She also said that it might have turned into a full blown fight if a police officer didn't happen to pass by right at that moment."

"Do you know the name of that man?"

"No, but Asumi told me that the two of them used to go to the same high school and that he was a spoiled rich kid who would often pick on her for being poor."

"That's it!" Izaya exclaimed with a snap of his fingers. "Rich spoiled brat doesn't want to get his hands dirty, so he hires some people to teach those he sees as being beneath him their place."

"So you don't think it was a random attack?" Shiki asked, unable to hide his surprise.

"I doubt it," Izaya said and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Did your son say anything about the attack?"

"He hasn't spoken a single word since he woke up in the hospital," the man answered in a pained voice. "The police tried talking to him a few times, but each time it ended with Reiji having really bad panic attacks, which is why they've mostly kept him sedated for the past few days."

"I need to talk to him," Izaya said and stood up, taking both men by surprise. He picked up his jacket, phone and keys, put on his shoes and opened the door. "Well?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Shiki asked as he followed the man to the elevator.

"There's no other way. I can't get my eyes and ears in this city to find anything if I don't know what I'm looking for," Izaya explained and pushed the elevator button. "I need to at least know how many of them were."

"I see. It makes sense," Shiki agreed and they all stepped out of the elevator and made their way to the exit.

"I agree to help you find these men, but I'll need something in return, tonight."

Shiki turned to Izaya, unable to hide his surprise at how bold the Informant was to expect payment before even giving them any sort of information.

"I'm going to need two of your men and a van to help me get four people out of the hospital," Izaya requested as soon as they were all inside the car.

"I can't agree to this unless you tell me what you plan to make my men do."

"Sure, no problem," Izaya said with a shrug. "Those four men I need taken out of the hospital have hurt Kasu-chan earlier this night. I need to make sure they don't go to the press and babble their mouths about what happened. Your men don't need to do anything besides take them out of the hospital and then to some place where I can talk to them without being disturbed."

"Why would they do that since they were the ones who attacked him?" Shiki asked, confused since what Izaya had said didn't make any sense.

"Well, that's the thing," Izaya proceeded to explain, "they attacked first, but it ended with Kasuka beating them to a bloody pulp."

Shiki actually smirked, liking that the actor was no pushover even after everything that had happened to him. "In that case, I'm sure Sato here would love to help." He then turned to the man. "Wouldn't you?"

The man nodded. "I'll do anything Orihara-san asks me to do if he can find the animals who broke my son."

Izaya smirked even though he still found it hard to believe that for once he'd get lucky with something since Shiki couldn't have shown up at a more appropriate time.

Shiki called someone to bring a van to the hospital and then they spent the rest of the way in silence, with Izaya trying to think of the best way to approach Reiji. He knew exactly just how terrifying the world and everyone in it would seem right after it happened, so he had to be careful to not scare the man to death. He had to look as non-threatening as possible, something that he thought might not be too hard in his case since even Kasuka had said that he would make a great actor.

Once they arrived, he got out of the car and Shiki motioned for the two men inside the black van to join them.

"I need you to get four people out of the hospital, but you're going to have to wait until I find out exactly where they are," Izaya said and waited for Shiki to nod before he made his way inside the hospital with the Awakusu-Kai Executive and Sato Jinpachi following after him. He then sent a message to Sakamoto Ryo and waited for the doctor to come down.

"What do you want?" Ryo asked, sounding annoyed since he wasn't exactly a fan of the Yakuza in general. The fact that they were there with Izaya meant that it wasn't anything good.

Izaya jumped straight to the subject by showing him the pictures on his phone. "I need you to tell me where these men are."

"You know I can't do that."

"These men hurt Kasu-chan," Izaya revealed.

"I'm a doctor, Izaya," Ryo reminded him through gritted teeth. "I took an oath to help people, regardless of who they are or what they might have done." A thought then went through his head and he couldn't help but gasp. "Are they the same people who attacked Reiji?" he asked since that would explain why the Awakusu-Kai were there with Izaya.

Izaya shrugged as he pocketed his phone. "I won't know for sure until I talk to Reiji."

"Now you want to talk to Reiji on top of all everything else?" Ryo nearly shouted. "He can't see anyone right now. He had an episode earlier and we barely succeeded in calming him down."

"I don't think you understand. These men here are going to take those assholes away one way or another while I go see Reiji. All I'm asking is that you help me out so that no one else will get hurt in the process."

"Do I have a choice?" Ryo mumbled.

"Yes, you do. You can help."

Ryo rolled his eyes and then let out a sound of surprise when Izaya grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from the Awakusu-Kai members. "What the hell?"

"Please help me," Izaya pleaded, his tone taking the doctor by surprise if the wide eyes were anything to go by. "I was the one who paid those guys to go after Shizuo when we were in high school, and even though I never told them to go after Kasuka, I still feel somewhat responsible for what happened to him back then and what happened to him tonight. I'm not going to kill them, I promise. I'm only going to make sure they won't destroy Kasu-chan's life by going to the press and saying he attacked them. Who do you care about more? Some strangers you never even met before or the brother of your high school friend?"

"Fine," Ryo conceded, but he was not happy about it at all. "They're in rooms 303 and 307."

"Thanks!" Izaya chirped happily as he pulled him into a hug. "I'll owe you one."

Ryo watched Izaya run to the Awakusu-Kai to give them the information and then back to follow him to Reiji's room, Sato Jinpachi following after him.

"Sato-san," Izaya started as he turned to him. "What does Reiji know about you?"

"His mother told him that I'm a distant relative of hers."

"Does he know you work for the Awakusu-Kai?"

The man shook his head. "No, his mother didn't want to tell him that I'm a criminal, as she put it. There she is," he then added as they approached Reiji's room.

Izaya waited until the woman finished talking to a doctor and then he approached her, immediately figuring out that the man who was with her was her husband and that the young woman was Reiji's girlfriend. "I'm here about Reiji. Can we talk in private?"

The woman gave Jinpachi a slightly fearful look, but she quickly calmed down when he nodded at her, letting her know that talking to the man was safe. She then followed this man down the hallway, wondering what he wanted to talk to her about and if he worked with Jinpachi.

"I'm here to help catch the men who hurt your son," Izaya let her know as soon as he stopped, "but I may need to tell Reiji some things to make him trust me."

"Like?" she asked in a worried voice.

"Like the fact that your 'relative' is a Yakuza," Izaya answered.

"No!" the woman nearly shouted. "He... he's a good kid. He doesn't need to know that Jinpachi is a criminal."

Izaya sighed softly. "Your soon is terrified of everyone and everything right now. He won't even talk to the police, that's how scared he is. He probably thinks that they can't do anything to help him. Or maybe they'd warned him that if he talked to the police, his loved ones might get hurt."

The woman gasped in shock and her face turned even paler than it already was.

"What he needs right now is to know that there's someone out there willing to go to any lengths to protect him. Sato Jinpachi is that someone."

"What if you're wrong?" she asked in a trembling voice. "What if finding out that Jinpachi is Yakuza will make things worse?"

"I'm not," Izaya answered confidently. "I... I actually know two people who have been through hell, just like your son. One of them was..." and here he had to pause because even though he was pretending to talk about a friend, it still hurt to even admit it, "raped, while the other was tortured for weeks." The older woman placed a comforting hand on his arm and Izaya has to admit that he was startled by her gesture.

"I'm sorry about your friends," she said in a motherly voice. "I'm sure they are grateful to you for being there for them when they needed you most."

"They are," Izaya answered in a slightly trembling voice. "They are doing better now. So will your son one day." The woman burst into tears a few moments later and Izaya didn't know what to say so he settled on telling her what he was planning to do. "I'm going to tell him exactly what's going to happen."

"Wha... what's going to happen?"

"Things that will make the people who hurt him beg for death," Izaya promised and this time it was him who placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.

The woman then nodded, thus giving him permission to do whatever he wanted before turning away and heading in the direction of the elevator.

Izaya made his way to Reiji's adoptive father and girlfriend. He told them he was there to find the culprits and the two were more than happy to answer any questions Izaya had, especially Asumi who went on a rant about how much of a psychopathic piece of trash her former high school classmate was. The more he heard about him, the more convinced he was that the man was responsible for what had happened to Reiji. Finally, after he found out all he could, he thanked the two and then knocked on the door and walked inside, Asumi only stepping in for a few moments to assure a terrified Reiji that Izaya was there to help.

Izaya waited until the woman left before he made his way to the chair and sat down, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "I'm not going to hurt you," he promised in a pained voice since he could see himself in Reiji and the simple act of looking at him brought back memories he didn't wish to recall at that moment. The man looked terrible, one arm and leg broken and a large part of his body covered in bandages, the little skin that was showing covered in purple and black bruises. "All I need from you is information so that I can catch those men and make sure they will never bother you again." The younger man trembled even harder in response, as though he didn't believe that he would ever be safe again. That too Izaya knew how it felt. "I assume you haven't told the police anything because those men threatened to hurt your family." Reiji's eyes widened even further, if that was even possible, and Izaya knew that he'd been right in his assumption.

"You don't need to be scared though. They're the ones who should be scared. They have no idea who they messed with. Have you ever heard of the Awakusu-Kai?" When he received no answer or any gesture that might let him know what the other was thinking, Izaya continued. "They're a Yakuza group operating within this city. Sato Jinpachi is a part of it and I sometimes help them out when they need information. There is no way your uncle is going to let those men get away with it. They will pay, do you understand me?" To his surprise, Reiji faintly nodded, looking still as terrified and broken as before but with a glimmer of hope shining in his eyes. "I'm going to ask a few questions next. It'd be preferable if you could answer, but I have a feeling that's very hard for you at the moment. I have a couple of friends who have been though some terrible things as well and I understand, so don't feel too bad if you can't talk yet." He then waited a few more seconds to let that sink in before continuing.

"Based on the evidence they found, the doctors concluded that you were attacked by more than one person, but I need to know the exact number. Was it two?" Nothing, no reply, no nod. "Three? Four?" Still nothing, and here Izaya had to pause because being raped by one person was already terrible and he didn't even want to imagine what it would be like to be at the mercy of several animals. "Five...?" Izaya swallowed the lump in his throat and struggled to push down the nausea threatening to surface before he could continue. Eventually, he got himself under the control. "Six...?" Reiji finally nodded, Izaya's eyes widening in shock since the thought alone was more than enough to make him want to throw up his dinner and then maybe puke his guts too.

"Did they threaten to hurt your family if you told the police anything?" Another nod, followed by what looked like the beginning of a panic attack. "Calm down, your family is safe. The Awakusu-Kai will make sure of it. No one will be able to get anywhere near them. There are men guarding them as we speak." The information seemed to calm Reiji a bit, but the kid was still agitated. Izaya was just about to ask the next question when Reiji spoke, his voice so low and broken that Izaya would've missed it if he hadn't been listened carefully. "Five?" he repeated the word, surprised.

Reiji nodded.

"So it was five, not six."

Reiji shook his head, the simple action almost making his dizzy.

Izaya frowned and remained silent for a while, trying to figure out what the kid was trying to say. "There were six but only five of them hurt you?"

Reiji shook his head again and a sound that reminded Izaya of a wounded animal left the kid's trembling lips.

"So there were six and they all hurt you but only five of them..."

This time Reiji nodded and Izaya winced a bit when the kid started sobbing. Shit. As much as he wanted to give him a break, he knew that he needed to find out more so that he could give the information to the Awakusu-Kai and then finally get to the business of making the men who had hurt Kasuka pay. Still, he knew that he couldn't push the broken creature before him, so he talked slowly, asked his questions and waited for answers patiently, the whole thing taking about half an hour. By the time they were done, Reiji had passed out from mental exhaustion, but it no longer mattered since Izaya had what he needed. He gave Reiji one last pained look and then walked out of the hospital room, the kid's family assaulting him with questions the moment he stepped outside. Luckily, it was Sato Jinpachi who saved him by promising to tell them everything later.

"Did you find out anything?" Shiki asked as soon as the two men stopped in front of him.

"Plenty, but I still don't know who―" That's when it hit Izaya like a brick wall and he had to blink and then lean against the wall to get his heartbeat under control because there was no way he could ever be this lucky.

"Are you okay?" Shiki asked, sounding slightly concerned.

"No way..." Izaya murmured to himself because there was simply no way for him to be right. Unless he was right, and the thought alone made him burst into laughter, making the two men who were looking at him think he'd lost his mind. "There's no way but..."

"Tell me," Shiki demanded.

"I could be wrong but the men who did it might just be this group led by a man who goes by the name of Kuro," Izaya revealed, his eyes still wide and his expression still one of shock mixed with amusement.

"I've never heard of him before," Shiki said and then turned to Sato. "You?" The man shook his head, so Shiki turned his attention back to Izaya whose eye shone with what looked like madness.

"They're an underground group who hurts people for money," Izaya explained as he took out his phone. "You haven't heard of them before because the victims are usually too scared to say anything and because they usually avoid messing with the Yakuza. They mostly just do the bidding of people who don't want to get their hands dirty."

"I'm going to kill them," Reiji's father hissed through gritted teeth as he balled his hands into fists.

"Well, you can't, not yet anyway. It looks like they took a video with what they did to Reiji and threatened to release it if he told the police anything. I know a skilled hacker who might be able to help, so wait until I see if he can get rid of all the copies those guys made before going after them. Here is all the information I have about them," he the added and sent the file to Shiki. He then turned to Sato and noticed that the man's angry expression had disappeared only to be replaced by one of fear. At that moment, Izaya was glad that Shizuo hadn't been smart enough to think of something like that.

"Sato here will drive you to where those four men are," Shiki let him know.

"So you got them all out safely?" Izaya inquired, smirking at the thought of finally making those assholes pay for what they had done to Kasuka.

Shiki gave him a nod and then turned around and went on his way while Jinpachi motioned for Izaya to follow him. Izaya caught sight of Ryo and noticed him glaring, but the doctor said nothing and Izaya decided that it was best to talk to him another day when the doctor had calmed down enough to understand that those assholes didn't deserve his protection.

Once inside the car, Sato addressed Izaya. "Thank you, Orihara-san," he said as he drove out of the hospital's parking lot. "Really, thank you! If you ever need anything, and I do mean anything, don't hesitate to ask."

"I will," Izaya said, liking the idea of having one more person he could use. "I need you to stop by my apartment on your way there, he requested and then couldn't help but think of Kuro and how glad he was that he wouldn't have to get his hands dirty to get rid of the man.

He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Kuro had fucked up badly and that the man might end up dead when the car stopped, Sato announcing that they had arrived. "Wait here," Izaya said and went inside the building and then up to his apartment, frowning as he grabbed the katana Mori Ken had given him before going back to the car. The man gave him a surprised look, as though he was impressed, but Izaya said nothing and instead took out his phone to call Shizuo. The thing only rang twice before the blond answered, the angry voice a clear sign that the beast was still furious about what had happened.

"You have some nerve to call..." Shizuo growled.

"I figured you might want to know that I have those four men who hurt Kasu-chan," Izaya announced, his lips quirking upwards into a smirk when Shizuo didn't reply right away and instead remained silent, most likely shocked by how quickly those bastards had been caught.

"Where are they?"

Izaya shivered at the tone, Shizuo's voice reminding him of a dangerous predator that was going to rip its pray to pieces. Swallowing nervously, he turned to Sato to ask the exact same question since he didn't know the answer either.

"They're at the same place where we took Sakamoto's men," Jinpachi answered loudly enough for Shizuo to hear over the phone.

"You heard Sato-san," Izaya said and then ended the call, smirking.

"I wouldn't want to be those men right now," Sato said, looking forward to a day when he too would get his revenge on the people who had hurt his son. "Orihara-san, have you talked to that hacker you mentioned earlier?"

"I sent him a message earlier, as well as all the information I had on Kuro and his men, asking him to start working on it right away. I'll let you know as soon as he finds something," Izaya assured him.

The man nodded and the rest of the way was spent in silence, with Izaya soon realizing where they were going since he knew a lot of things about the Awakusu-Kai, including some of the places where they took captured enemies. Once there, Izaya got out of the car and made his way up the stairs, holding the katana tightly in his hand.

"Sato-san, Orihara-san," one of the Awakusu-Kai members guarding the door greeted them before opening it and motioning for them to go in.

"I'll be here if you need anything," Sato announced, thinking that Izaya might like to be alone with those men until Ikebukuro's strongest arrived there.

Izaya nodded and made his way inside, smirking when his eyes fell on the terrified faces of the four chained bastards who had been stupid enough to pick on Kasuka. "It's been a while," he chirped and stopped in the middle of the room, his smirk widening further when he heard a few sounds of shock when the men finally recognized him.

"The hell you want?" Genjiro growled, trying to sound dangerous, but Izaya could tell that the man was scared.

"I never told you guys to go after Kasu-chan," Izaya hissed, amusement gone from his voice. "I only paid you to go after Shizu-chan."

"So fucking what?" Hatsuo hissed back at him. "It's not like you told us to not go after him either."

"That's true, but it still makes you shitheads look like cowards for ganging up on a kid."

Genjiro laughed, the nasty sound bouncing off the walls. "Then what does that make you for sending so many of us after Heiwajima Shizuo?"

Izaya shrugged. "Shizu-chan is not like Kasu-chan. Shizu-chan is a beast."

"Why do you even fucking care?" Genjiro shouted and then hissed in pain because his face hurt like hell after the many punches he'd received from the freak.

"That's none of your business," Izaya replied coldly and unsheathed the katana slowly, eyes narrowed into slits.

"W-What are you planning to d-do with that?" one of the men asked.

Izaya didn't really remember two of them. He only remembered Genjiro and Hatsuo because they had been the ones with whom he'd talked about their arrangement.

"Do you think it can cut through bone?" Izaya contemplated as he stared at the blade in awe. "I mean, it's so sharp..."

"You're not really going to use that on us, right?" Hatsuo asked in a trembling voice.

Izaya’s head snapped in his direction. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Why the hell do you even care about that freak? He's that monster's brother! Don't you hate Heiwajima Shizuo?" Genjiro asked, he too trembling in fear.

Izaya was just about to say that him hating Shizuo had nothing to do with it, but he never got a chance to because the door swung open and the beast walked in, the fury on the blond's face making a shiver run up his spine even though said fury was not directed at him. "That was fast," he chirped to hide his fear, but he had a feeling that the beast knew anyway. Predators always knew.

"You're all fucking dead," Shizuo growled his promise and Izaya swiftly made his way out of there and closed the door behind him, his heart starting to beat wildly the moment he heard the screams coming from the inside.

"I'm glad it's not me in there right now," one of the Awakusu-Kai members said, laughing awkwardly.

"Leave," Izaya requested. "All of you."

"Are you sure?" Sato asked.

"I'm sure," Izaya replied and then watched the men leave the building, glad that they'd listened to him since there were some things he wanted to talk about with Shizuo and he didn't want to risk anyone overhearing their conversation.

Chapter 109: Behind the Fog

Shizuo was so angry that he could barely think, a sort of blind rage overtaking him the moment his eyes had settled upon the faces of some of the men who had made Kasuka's life a nightmare, a nightmare that his precious little brother had kept a secret for so many years. He doubted there was anything he could do to them that would quench the thirst for blood he felt as he paced in front of them, his fingers clenching and unclenching as he tried to calm down enough to not viciously rip off their heads with his bare hands and be done with it.

"You fucking pieces of shit," Shizuo growled between gritted teeth as he stopped pacing, the sudden action making some of the terrified men try to push themselves further into the wall behind them. "You dared to hurt my brother, who never did anything to anyone."

Despite the chilling fear he felt spreading its tendrils throughout his entire being, Genjiro still found the courage to speak. He was used to being the one in charge, not at someone else's mercy, and he wasn't going to let the man before him think for a second that he was utterly terrified of him even though he was. His pride had already been wounded enough for one night. Besides, Izaya was far more terrifying that Shizuo could ever be. As much of a monster as Shizuo was, he had never killed anyone. The worst he could expect from him was a really bad beating. Izaya on the other hand was unpredictable and Genjiro wouldn't put it past the man to chop off their heads with that damn katana. For now though, he had to focus on Ikebukuro's strongest and worry about Izaya later. "The freak could take a beating though," he said in a wistful voice, as though he was reminiscing a favorite memory. "We'd make bets about who would manage to get him to scream first."

He saw Shizuo's eyes widen in horror and unadulterated fury and even though he knew that he would pay for his words in a few moments, he still couldn't stop himself knowing that if he was ever going to hurt the man before him, this was it. His little brother was his weakness, just as they'd all assumed. When the blond didn't do anything, most likely because he was still too shocked by what he'd heard, Genjiro continued, his voce dripping with satisfaction knowing that even though he had never succeeded in hurting Ikebukuro's strongest physically, he could destroy him emotionally.

"He took it like a man, every single time, but I have a feeling that's no longer the case." He then added, snickering, even though any expression he made hurt because of the many punches the freak had rained upon him. "I bet that Adabashi guy made him his little bitch. I mean, did you see that picture?" At Shizuo's horrified gasp of disbelief, he couldn't help but laugh a bit, before the pain became unbearable and he groaned.

"Nothing like that happened to my brother!" Shizuo roared and punched the wall right above Genjiro's head, leaving a small crater behind and making three of the four men scream in terror.

Genjiro merely flinched, and even though it felt as though his heart was going to give out at any moment, he continued, once and for all showing his friends why he was the leader and why they were never going to be anything more than minions. "You can't know that for sure." He then paused for a few moments, waiting for the words to sink it. "How long was he gone, four, five weeks? Lots of things could've happened during that time," he said in a sympathetic voice, the barely visible trembling of Shizuo's fingers letting him know that he was on the right track. "It's not just me, you know? Many people think the same, isn't that right?" he then asked as he turned to his stunned friends, their eyes wide with horror mixed with awe at the fact that their friend and leader would even dare bring it up. "Isn't that right?" he repeated the question as he glowered at his friends who finally nodded their heads.

"T-That's right!" Hatsuo said, Genjiro's attitude giving him courage. "I even told the guys that maybe we should let your brother go when I saw just how terrified and pathetic he was. He didn't even try to free himself when we started dragging him away."

Shizuo felt sick to his stomach, all the doubts he'd had about his brother only having been tortured returning to him full force and turning his knees to jelly. Just because the doctors haven't found any signs it didn't mean that Adabashi hadn't done something. For all he knew, Adabashi could've used his brother in the same way Kuro was planning to use him. A wave of nausea hit him hard and he had to cover his mouth as terrifying images sprang into his mind and spiraled into worse and worse thoughts of what Adabashi might've done to Kasuka in that basement, but then he caught sight of Genjiro's smirk and he realized that the reason why the man was saying those things was to get into his head and distract him from enacting justice for all the things these men had done to Kasuka.

Slowly, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to chase away all the dark thoughts swirling around in his head. He stayed like that for a few good minutes, just telling himself over and over again that Adabashi had only tortured Kasuka. When he opened his eyes again, he was calmer, more composed, and he addressed them in a surprisingly calm voice.

"I almost died a few months ago," he revealed. "I couldn't move, couldn't get up, so I almost bled to death because of a stab wound, but you know what kept me alive? You," he then said as he looked at every one of them. "I wanted so badly to hurt all of you assholes that I managed to get up and walk away, my desire to avenge my brother strong enough to even beat death. So you see," he said and he cracked his knuckles, letting them know that he was about to use his fists on them, "no matter what you say or do, I'm still going to break your fucking faces and then maybe throw you to Izaya so that he can test that katana of his if there's anything left of you by the time I'm done."

Genjiro's smirk disappeared and he shuddered, realizing that his plan had backfired.

"So you can talk about that sick fuck Adabashi and what he might have done to my brother, but that doesn't have anything to do with you and it doesn't change the fact that the reason why you pieces of shit are here is because you have also hurt my brother," Shizuo finished, hoping to shut them up once and for all, or at least their stupid comments since he had no doubts they would start screaming soon enough.

And they did, the sounds making Izaya flinch and move further down the hallway where he couldn't hear them as well. As much as he wanted those men to suffer, the terror and desperation in their voices as they kept screaming reminded him of how he had felt being at Shizuo's mercy and that was enough to make him feel nauseous. He wasn't terrified of Shizuo anymore because he understood that the beast truly wouldn't hurt him that way again, but the memories the beast had left him with were still there and he couldn't control when they appeared as easily as he could control some of his humans. The memories were there to stay and there was nothing he could do to change that. Izaya expected the beating to go on for some time, but Shizuo walked out not even five minutes later, the beast's hands trembling with fury even after taking some of his anger out on the four men in that room.

"That was fast," Izaya chirped as he pushed himself away from the corner and took a couple of steps in Shizuo's direction.

"I gave them some time to think," Shizuo replied with a shrug.

Izaya blinked, intrigued. "Time to think about what?"

"I asked them to give me the names of all the people who have ever hurt Kasuka that they know about." Despite the anger he was still feeling towards Izaya for failing to protect his brother, Shizuo couldn't help but be grateful to the flea for having caught those bastards so quickly. "The katana was a nice touch," he said with a smirk, trying to ease the tension between them.

The katana is not for them, Shizu-chan, Izaya thought as he smiled back, swallowing nervously. It's for you. His plan could backfire horribly and he could get hurt, but he no longer wanted to either ignore the issue or pretend it didn't exist. He needed to know the whole truth.

"Ne, Shizu-chan," Izaya started in a sadistic voice, "don't you just want to completely and utterly destroy those assholes after what they did to Kasu-chan?"

"Yeah," Shizuo growled between clenched teeth as he balled his bloody hands into fists, "I do."

"But you beat them up before though, no?" Izaya continued. "And they still didn't learn they lesson."

Shizuo groaned in frustration. "Yeah."

"A simple beating is simply not enough for people who never learn," Izaya stated, his fingers tightening on the handle of the katana. "They need to be taught a lesson." The beast nodded in response, clearly not yet aware of where Izaya was going with it. "They need to be punished in such a way that they will never forget what a huge mistake it was to mess with Heiwajima Shizuo."

Shizuo started to nod, only to suddenly freeze when he realized the implications of what Izaya was suggesting. His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't know what to say so he stayed like that for some time, just staring at Izaya in shock while the flea dared him to disagree if the expression on the man's face was anything to go by. Mouth dry, he swallowed and tried to just breathe, but it felt as though he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. Eventually, he managed to get out a few words, his small voice trembling as he spoke. "Why w-would you...?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Izaya countered, his eye narrowing and his upper lip curling into a sneer. "You didn't seem to have any problem tearing into me like an animal. You said you did it to teach me a lesson, so why don't you teach them that same lesson, hmm?"

"I... It's not..."

"It's not what? Not the same? You said that the sight of me kneeling at your feet, being at your mercy, turned you on. They're at your feet as well, at your mercy." Shizuo looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but Izaya didn't stop, decided to push through no matter what now that he wanted to know everything the beast had felt that day. "Why did you rape me while they only get a beating?"

Shizuo actually took a step back instinctively, feeling with every fiber of his being that he was somehow in danger.

Izaya continued, his voice sounding vicious, as though he was cutting into the man before him with his words. "I know I'm good-looking, but Genjiro isn't so bad either. I bet you could easily get it up for him if you decided to 'punish' him."

"N-No... I..." Shizuo uttered brokenly, his thoughts a whirlwind, his mind unable to cling to anything that made sense.

"What's the problem here, Shizu-chan?" Izaya raised his tone, sounding impatient. "I'm asking you a simple question." He then waited for a bit, hoping for an answer, but none came. Deciding he'd had enough, he unsheathed the katana and assumed a battle stance, smirking when he saw the beast shudder. Shizuo might have learned to no longer fear the switchblades, but he had a feeling that it was different when it came to the katana.

Shizuo was so shocked by Izaya's suggestion and then question that he took a few steps backwards without even realizing it, blinking in surprise once his back made contact with the wall behind him. He swallowed nervously, realizing from Izaya's stare that the flea meant business.

"What's the difference between me and them?" Izaya repeated the question. "Why were you able to 'punish' me and not them?" When Shizuo didn't reply, Izaya took a step forward, letting him know that he had every intention of cutting him if he didn't get his answers. "I want to know exactly why you could only do that to me," Izaya hissed in anger.

Shizuo shuddered under Izaya's intense gaze, lower lip trembling in confusion since he didn't know what the man before him wanted to hear.

As if guessing his thoughts, Izaya hissed, his voice dangerous as he warned. "The truth, Shizuo."

The fact that Izaya had used his actual name instead of the stupid nickname only served to convince Shizuo that he was utterly screwed. "Y-You already k-know," he finally managed to utter, stuttering pathetically, "b-because I h-hate you."

"Really?" Izaya asked mockingly. "And them you don't hate? Who knows how many times they even beat up Kasu-chan? I thought you loved your brother more than anything in the world."

"I do!" Shizuo finally managed to say without his voice trembling since it was a question he could easily answer, unlike all the other stuff Izaya wanted to know. He then took a deep breath, trying to gather his wits. "Why are you all of a sudden interrogating me about that night?"

"I was at the hospital earlier," Izaya started, still not easing his grip on the katana, "and I talked to someone who went through the same thing I did, only worse."

"Worse...?" Shizuo asked in confusion.

"Yeah, worse. Kuro's men did to him what they never got a chance to do to you."

Shizuo's face turned as white as a sheet and he closed his eyes, trying to chase away the nausea he couldn't help but feel as memories of the humiliation Kuro and his men had subjected him came back to him, as well as how close he'd gotten to actually getting raped himself. He just stayed like that for some time, riding the wave of nausea inducing flashbacks until he finally calmed down enough to be able to push them to the back of his mind where they belonged. "I see now," he finally said into a soft voice as he moved away from the wall and took a step in Izaya direction. "Talking to that person must've brought back terrible memories of what I did to you."

"No, it made me think of puppies and rainbows," Izaya replied sarcastically with a roll of his eye. "How about you stop trying to play therapist and instead answer my question?"

"I don't know!" Shizuo shouted in despair. "That's the answer! I don't fucking know, okay? All I know is that I could never do something like that to anyone ever again. I couldn't do it to you even when Adabashi was torturing Kasuka. You already know that, so what more do you want from me?!"

"I want to know everything," Izaya hissed. "Every little thing that went through your stupid brain that night."

"You think I remember everything?!" Shizuo asked, his tone one of disbelief.

"Ah, that's right," Izaya spat in disgust. "I guess you were too busy enjoying yourself at the expense of the 'dumb fuck' writhing in agony beneath you while you were supposedly teaching him a lesson. A+ Teaching Skills!" he then added mockingly as he gave Shizuo the thumbs up.

"I'm sorry!" Shizuo growled the apology. "I'm really fucking sorry. I was angry and stupid and there's not excuse for what I've done. You already know all this though, so why are we having this conversation again?"

"Because talking to that poor kid reminded me how much I hate you for what you did to me," Izaya hissed. "Because you saying you did it out of hatred just doesn't cut it anymore after you've saved my life more than once since then. You call me a disgusting flea, but then you were more than willing to kiss me when I pretended to have been in love with you since high school."

"Were you really pretending though?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask.

Izaya stared in disbelief for a few moments before his brows furrowed in anger. "Of course I was!"

"How can I trust anything that comes out of your mouth?" Izaya actually looked offended, but Shizuo was too angry to care. "I never know when you're speaking the truth!"

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Izaya warned as he took a step forward, the blade shining even in the poorly lighted hallway, making him look even more dangerous. "Why me and no one else? I'm not the worst person out there! I've done a lot of questionable things, but I never tortured anyone for weeks until they broke, like Adabashi did to your brother."

"It wasn't your fault, flea," Shizuo addressed him softly when he saw the pain in Izaya's expression. "You didn't deserve what I did to you. All of it is my fault, okay?"

"But why?" Izaya asked asked, despairing. "Kuro and his men would do anything for money. They enjoy hurting people for a job. You on the other hand... how can someone do that and at the same time be so caring? You were willing to sacrifice your own life for me! How can a monster be so human? Nothing about you makes any sense!"

Shizuo sighed softly. "I could ask you the same question. One day you try to kill me and the next you want to save me."

Izaya clicked his tongue in annoyance. "I already told you. You're like a toy I can't stop breaking. What else would I play with? There are other humans of course, but they break too easily, so they're no fun."

"If that's your answer, then mine is that I was angry that night, so let's leave it at that, okay?" Shizuo half-demanded, half-pleaded.

"Not good enough!" Izaya hissed. "Why me and no one else?"

"I already―"

"Why me??"

"Because it was you!" Shizuo roared in anger as he ran his fist through the nearest wall, the sudden act of violence making the flea take a step backwards on instinct.

Izaya stared at him for a long time, eye wide as he tried to understand what the beast was saying.

Shizuo glowered back for a good few minutes until finally he took a deep breath to calm down, already regretting his outburst. "Even now, after all of the things we've been through together and the many times we've saved each other, you're still scared of me," Shizuo uttered in a sorrowful voice. "You were the only person who was never scared of me and I ruined that."

Izaya tried to look more relaxed, hating the fact that Shizuo could so easily see through him. "We fought many battles, but that night you won the war. It was a devastating loss for me," he admitted, not seeing the point in lying about it.

"I didn't win any war," Shizuo said in a sad voice. "The only thing I did was prove to you that you'd been right all along, that I was a monster."

"A war you need not end that way!" Izaya said, the fury back in voice. "It was fine before. We would fight each other and neither of us would win. There was balance, a balance that you destroyed by trying to crush me. Why would you do that to me? How could you do that to me?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore!" Shizuo roared, but his anger was a disguise for the guilt and regret he felt over what he’d done to the only man he had ever found to be worthy of being his adversary.

"Tough luck! Just because you don't want something, it doesn't mean it won't happen anyway," Izaya said in a malicious voice. As expected, Shizuo lowered his head in shame, but to his surprise, the beast started walking away. "You don't get to run away from this discussion," Izaya warned and raised the katana just as Shizuo was walking past him, pushing it against his throat.

Shizuo stopped. "You can have my head if you want. I won't fight back," he said without even looking at him as he raised his hand and pushed the blade away.

"Don't you dare walk away, this discussion is not over!" Izaya shouted as he raised the katana again, his whole body trembling with the effort it took to not decapitate the beast. "It's not over, you hear me?" Shizuo was out the door a moment later and Izaya finally sheathed the weapon and propped it against the wall, knowing that it was dangerous to keep it on his person when it felt as though he wanted to destroy everyone and everything around him. Frowning, he took off his jacket, placed it on the nearest windowsill and made his way to the room where the four men were still whimpering in agony.

"Now it's my turn," he said and that was the only warning they got before Orihara Izaya proceeded to use them as an outlet for all the anger he'd kept bottled up inside of him.

***

The first rays of the sun were starting to spread its tendrils throughout the city when Ruri finally arrived home, looking forward to crawling into bed and into her beloved Yuuhei's arms and getting some much needed sleep after the tiring night she'd had shooting an ad. She quietly opened the door and stepped into the apartment, not expecting to find him sitting on the couch, bruised and bandaged and looking at her with an emotionless expression that couldn't quite hide the pain in his eyes. She quickly closed the door and ran to him, dropping to her knees and grabbing his bandaged hands. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Kasuka simply stared at her for a long time, trying to gather the courage to tell her that he'd lost his cool and would've beaten some men to death if the police hadn't stopped him. It wasn't that he thought Ruri would be disappointed in him, but he was disappointed in himself and he was tired of looking so weak in front of the woman he loved. Ruri had fallen in love with the cool, confident and collected Hanejima Yuuhei, not this pathetic creature who couldn't even talk, afraid that everyone would be able to tell from his voice alone just how badly Adabashi had broken him. He hated that sadist, but most of all he hated himself for not being able to just brush it off and move on like he'd done after all those fights he'd gotten into as he grew up.

"Please tell me what happened," Ruri asked again when it looked like the man she loved was once again stuck in his own head. It broke her heart to see him like this, and even though she missed the emotionless monster that was Hanejima Yuuhei, she couldn't help but also love the human side of him. When he still didn't answer, she picked up the PDA from the coffee table and handed it to him. "Tell me who hurt you so that I can rip them to pieces."

[You don't have to,] Kasuka was quick to type, not wanting Ruri to get into trouble. [I already took care of them.]

Ruri would've been surprised, if not for the fact that she knew the man she loved well enough to not underestimate him even in such a broken state. She knew that Yuuhei was strong and this only served to further cement that belief. Slowly, she raised her hands, placed them behind his head and pulled him down into a kiss, mindful of his injuries. The kiss was soft and loving and it went on for quite some time before she pulled away and then crawled up on the couch and into his arms, feeling a bit guilty when he let out a small sound of pain. "Are you sure you don't want me to kill them?" she asked, her tone completely serious.

Kasuka struggled for a bit before he found a comfortable position from which he could type even while holding Ruri in his arms. [You don't have to. I think they're going to wish they were dead anyway once my brother and Izaya are done with them.]

"Izaya was supposed to protect you," Ruri reminded him and she made a mental note to tell the Informant to stay away if he couldn't even keep Yuuhei out of trouble.

[It wasn't his fault,] Kasuka quickly defended him. [I sneaked out of this store we were in when he was talking to the woman there about ordering something custom made.]

"I see," Ruri said and caressed his bruised left arm. She wanted to know exactly what had happened, but she was tired and so was her beloved so she decided to leave it for later. They were together and in each other's arms and that was the only thing that mattered.

Chapter 110: The Negation

Notes:

Hello, guys! I'm sorry for taking so long to update but you know how it is, holidays and stuff and who feels like writing when you can do other stuff or you can simply be lazy? ^^; Anyway, my resolution for 2018 is to update this fic at least every two weeks, but we'll see how that goes. >.>

I'm five days late but, Happy New Year! \o /

Shizuo was on his way to work the next morning when someone bumped into him. Normally, he would've punched the idiot into oblivion for shouting at him to be more careful even though it wasn't Shizuo's fault to begin with, but he didn't even have the energy to get angry after the sleepless night he'd just had thinking about his fight with Izaya. He'd hoped that Izaya was doing better, but it was obvious that the man was still very much fixated on that night. Shizuo couldn't blame him, but it still bothered him a lot because he didn't know which answer would satisfy Izaya.

"The truth," he remembered the flea saying, and the restlessness he felt deep within intensified as a result of Izaya making him doubt himself. A crazy thought entered his mind then and he almost dismissed it, but something told him that it might just be the only way to find the answer Izaya was looking for. Cringing, he took out his phone and dialed Tom.

"Hey! What's up?" Tom asked, curious as to why Shizuo would call him when he and Vorona were minutes away from the meeting place.

"I was wondering if I could be a bit late today..." Shizuo asked, feeling embarrassed for requesting such a thing even though he knew that his senpai would have no issue with it.

"Did something happen?"

"No, nothing happened," Shizuo assured him, "there's just something I gotta do."

"Okay, then I'll see you soon."

Shizuo wasn't too sure that what he was about to do was a good idea, but he still made his way to a quiet place behind one of the stores, looked for the number he'd only dialed once before and then called the one person he never thought he'd ever talk to again.

"Hello," came the woman's voice from the other end and Shizuo almost ended the call but somehow managed to bring the phone back to his ear and even open his mouth to speak.

"H-Hi," he said, sounding nervous. "My name is Heiwajima Shizuo. I don't know if you remember me, but we've―"

"I remember," the woman replied calmly.

Shizuo almost lost his courage to continue, but he took a deep breath, reminding himself that he needed to do this if he ever wanted both he and Izaya to be able to move on with their lives, even if neither of them could ever forget what had happened that night. "There's something I need to figure out and I was wondering if you could help me do that. I can pay you; I just need some advice..." he then added, sounding just a tiny bit desperate.

For a moment, Fujita Shizuka froze, not knowing how to react at the prospect of treating both the victim and the perpetrator, but she quickly pushed that aside when she realized that by talking to this man, she would most likely help Izaya as well. To top it all of, she was already meeting the younger Heiwajima that evening, so the last thing she had expected that day was to get a call from the man's brother. "Tell me what's on your mind," she suggested. If it was anyone else, she would've asked them to make an appointment, but in Heiwajima Shizuo's case, knowing what she knew, she under no circumstance wanted to be alone with the man.

"I hurt someone..." Shizuo started, swallowing nervously. "It's not the first time I hurt people, but I've never hurt someone like that before. I think it's because I really hate the guy, but for some reason, he thinks there's more to it."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know!" Shizuo said, sounding exasperated. "I've hated the guy from the moment we met. I wanted to wipe that disgusting smirk off his face once and for all, to show him that he can't keep doing shitty things and get away with it forever."

"So you punished him."

"Yes, I wanted to teach him a lesson."

"And how did you feel afterwards?"

"Like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on my head," Shizuo replied without hesitation. "I saw him looking so broken and scared and I never regretted anything more than I regretted what I did to him that night."

"So you know that what you did was wrong."

"Of course I know! I knew it even while I was hurting him, but I was too angry to care," Shizuo confessed, feeling ashamed.

"Why does the man you hurt think there's more to it?"

"That's what I want to know! He kept asking me why him and no one else. Why I would only hurt him that way..."

"Let us take this man you hurt and the one who kidnapped your brother. Between the two of them, which one do you think is a worse person?"

"Adabashi," Shizuo growled the name without hesitation.

"In that case, could you punish him in the same way you had punished the other man you hurt?"

"No!"

"Then you might see why that man is upset over the way you had treated him. He must feel that the punishment he received did not fit the crime," Shizuka concluded, cringing a bit at how hard she was trying to not use the word 'rape' since Heiwajima Shizuo had no idea that she was treating Izaya or that she knew what he had done.

"Okay..." Shizuo uttered, his voice barely above a whisper. "Let's say he's right. How do I figure out what that 'something more' is?"

"You sit down, close your eyes and then try to relax. You retrace every step you took that night and when you feel something that makes you uncomfortable, you try to identify what that something is instead of pretending it's not there. The key to success here is to be honest with yourself no matter how painful the truth may be."

Shizuo remained silent for a long time, trying to process what the woman had said and if he would be able to ever be honest with himself when it came to the flea. Finally, when he realized that there was nothing else she could do for him unless he told her the truth, he thanked her, ended the call and made his way to the place where he was supposed to meet Tom and Vorona, all the while getting increasingly agitated at the prospect of even mentally retracing the steps he took that accursed night.

***

It wasn't even lunch time and Shiki was already getting a headache as Izaya was unveiling his plan on how to catch Kuro and his gang and at the same time make sure that none of them could leak the video of what they had done to Reiji.

On the bright side, it was Kuro and his gang and Izaya was glad that he wouldn't have to worry anymore about Kuro once the Awakusu-kai were done with him.

"So, do you think you can arrange that, Shiki-san?" Izaya asked in an annoyed tone, immediately noticing his mistake and putting on a smile when he realized that Shiki was giving him a strange look, as though the man could tell that something was wrong. It was more like nothing was okay, but Shiki didn't need to know that since it had nothing to do with him.

"I don't like it, but it'll be done," Shiki answered, eyes narrowing further as he studied the Informant. The man looked restless, angry even, and Shiki couldn't help but wonder if it had anything to do with the job or if it was personal. "Are you okay?" he asked just as Izaya was about to stand up, the man freezing in place, eyes wide and his expression one of shock, as though he had never expected Shiki Haruya to ask him such a question.

"I had no idea you cared, Shiki-san," Izaya said, smirking, after he managed to get over the shock. "I'm fine though, thanks for asking."

Shiki nodded. "I imagine it wasn't easy to hear what those men did to Jinpachi's kid, but I knew you were good at this sort of stuff, at getting people to talk, so that's why I asked for your help on this matter."

Izaya almost breathed in relief at the fact that Shiki thought it had something to do with that poor kid since the last thing he wanted was for the man to think he was weak or something. "Make the arrangements as soon as possible so that we can proceed with the plan." Finally, he stood up, feeling a bit dizzy since he hadn't eaten anything since his meeting with Reiji. "Those men are monsters, so I can't blame Sato-san if he ends up killing them," he then added as an afterthought as he turned around and headed for the door.

***

Kasuka was pacing in his living room, feeling extremely nervous about his meeting with the therapist Izaya had recommended. He was, however, grateful that she had agreed to meet him at his apartment since he was reluctant to go outside so soon after his run-in with Genjiro and his minions. The doorbell rang and he nearly jumped out of his skin, but he still managed to gather the courage to make his way to the door and open it regardless of how much he dreaded their conversation.

"Hello, I'm Fujita Shizuka. Nice to meet you."

[Nice to meet you as well,] Kasuka typed and showed her the PDA before inviting her inside and then continuing. [Thank you for agreeing to see me here.] He then sat down on the couch and motioned for her to sit down next to him so that she could see the words written on the PDA more easily.

"Orihara-san told me that you couldn't go outside. I now see what he meant," she said as she pointed to the bruises on his face. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

[Not really. What they did to me doesn't matter. I'm used to getting hurt.]

Shizuka almost winced in sympathy at the revelation. "No person should ever get used to something like that."

Kasuka unconsciously made himself smaller as he recalled his time with Adabashi. [It's not like I had a choice.]

She could see that he was starting to fall into a deep dark pit of pain and despair and knew that she had to pull him out before he completely closed off. Slowly, she raised her hand and gently placed it on his shoulder, not at all surprised when the man flinched at the contact but grateful when he seemed to accept it once he got over the surprise. "You survived. You're here now. You're safe."

[I didn't. He broke me. He won,] Kasuka revealed, fingers slightly trembling because even though this woman was a stranger, it still took a log of courage for him to admit to such a thing. Or maybe the reason why he could even admit it to begin with was because she was a stranger.

"I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through, but I don't think he won. You got away. It sounds to me like you're the one who won. Even if you broke like you said, breaking under torture doesn't make you weak, it just makes you human. There's only so much pain we can stand before we would do anything to make it stop," she said and then gave Kasuka's shoulder a light squeeze before pulling her hand away. "Do you think that man Adabashi would've been able to stand being subjected to the same pain he inflicted on you without breaking?"

Kasuka almost laughed at the thought since he knew that Adabashi was a pathetic piece of trash who would've never been able to beat him in a fair fight. [I think he would've broken much sooner than I did,] he eventually wrote, a soft sigh slipping past his lips.

"You've been through something that no person should ever go through and you came out of it alive, so stop blaming yourself for being human."

[That's the problem though. I'm not supposed to be human. I'm supposed to be the emotionless freak who's the opposite of my brother, not someone who would nearly beat people to death in a fit of rage.]

"Orihara-san told me you got into a fight but he didn't go into details. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

[I froze.]

"It's a natural response humans get when they know that fighting will only make it worse. Don't blame yourself for being human. You don't have to hide your feelings and emotions. You just need to be yourself, even if the person you are now is not the same as the person you were before."

[The problem is not that I froze, but that I nearly killed them once I got past the fear and all I felt was anger. I was out of control. I would've killed them if the Police hadn't shown up.]

"But you didn't," Shizuka reminded him.

[I just want to go back to the way things were...]

"Why can't you?"

Kasuka almost rolled his eyes since he thought the answer was pretty obvious, but then he remembered that this woman had just met him and that of course she couldn't have possibly known what he was like before. [Leaving aside the fact that I can't even speak without being afraid that I might sound pathetic, Adabashi left me with a lot of scars, and I don't mean the emotional type either.]

Shizuka realized her mistake when she remembered the photo Adabashi had released online. There was no way those cuts wouldn't scar. To top it off, movie producers wanted the best of the best and she doubted that many would be interested in hiring someone whose body was scarred. Still, it didn't mean that there was no chance for him to star in movies again. "You won't know for sure until you try it. Maybe there's a role out there that's perfect for the you with scars. Besides, some women find scars to be quite sexy," she then said in a conspiratorial tone, hoping to cheer him up. "As for your voice, have you tried talking lately?"

Kasuka shook his head.

"Okay, then say something now. I never knew you before so I have no idea how your voice is normally supposed to sound," she encouraged him and then continued when he remained silent. "You were able to tell me this much on our first meeting because you truly wish to get better and also because I'm a stranger, no? It's always easier to talk to strangers who won't judge you by the same standards as the people who know you. Strangers don't have any expectations you need to meet, right?"

Once again, Kasuka nodded before typing his reply. [You're right. I can't tell these things to the people who care about me. It would hurt them too much.]

"May I?" Shizuka asked as she pointed to his PDA.

Kasuka wasn't sure what she wanted at first, but when he realized that she was trying to take away his means of replying to her in text, he hesitated only for a few seconds before reluctantly handing the device to her. The thought of speaking after so long was terrifying, but the desire to tell Ruri how much he loved her and to thank people for having saved him was strong enough to at least make him want to try.

"I'm glad that you're willing to give it your all to get better.  The truth is that most patients take a very long time to open up about things," Shizuka revealed and placed the PDA on the couch to her right and away from the man she was trying to get to talk. "To me, it just means that you're not as broken as you think you are."

Kasuka's fingers twitched, the impulse to reach for the PDA and grab it almost too strong to ignore. He didn't give into it though. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to push back the panic he felt at the thought of his voice sounding weak and pathetic by reminding himself that this woman hadn't known him before and as such she wouldn't be able to tell if he didn't sound like his usual emotionless self. "I want to believe you," he finally said, barely hearing his own voice with how fast his heart was beating. Eyes wide, he almost couldn't believe he'd spoken and even doubted it for a second, but the smile on the woman's face told him otherwise.

Instead of praising him like one would a child, Shizuka chose to continue the conversation as though Kasuka speaking was nothing out of the ordinary. "You don't need to believe me. The one you need to believe in is yourself."

"How can I do that after I've betrayed my brother and Izaya?" Kasuka asked once he got over the shock of Fujita Shizuka continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened.

"I obviously don't know for a fact, but to me, it doesn't look like Orihara-san is angry at you. If anything, it seems like he wants you to get better. As for your brother, I don't really know him, but I have a feeling that he's grateful to have you back," Shizuka said in an attempt to make him feel better. She had no idea what her patient might have told his torturer, but whatever it was, it didn't look like it mattered that much.

"It still doesn't change the fact that I betrayed them..." Kasuka uttered brokenly, unable to hide the pain he felt at having his brother and Izaya put in a terrible situation because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"It looks to me like you're unable to think about the situation objectively. If it had been anyone else in your situation, would you blame them for having told their torturer things they would otherwise never tell a soul? What if your brother had been in your place, or Orihara-san, or even Hijiribe-san? Would you blame either of them?"

Kasuka felt sick just thinking about it, but her question made him realized just how far he'd fallen if he couldn't even think rationally anymore. It was starting to become obvious that Adabashi had not only left him with scars but also with feelings of powerlessness and shame that he seemed unable to overcome. Still, knowing that he had such a problem was half the battle, and he was grateful to this woman for knowing exactly what to say to help him work through his feelings of guilt and shame and at the same time help him overcome them. "No, I would never blame any of them," he finally answered and somehow it felt as though a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "I would be too grateful to have them back to care about anything else." Just as he was grateful to have back the brother he feared might never wake up from his coma.

***

The sun had set by the time Shizuo finished work and was making his way home, his mind set on following Fujita Shizuka's advice. It was a little past ten when he finally entered the building and went up the stairs, not expecting to find the flea leaning against his door.

"Took you long enough," Izaya muttered as he pushed himself away from the door so that Shizuo could open it.

"Can we not do this right now?" Shizuo pleaded.

"Do what?"

"Fight." There was very little chance that Izaya would leave him alone, but Shizuo still had to try. "I don't want to fight right now. If we fight, I'll be too angry to try to focus on recalling how I felt that night and then I won't be able to give you your answer."

"Oh!" Izaya exclaimed in surprise. "You know what?" he then said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I'll help."

"That's not a very good idea," Shizuo said in an attempt to make the flea change his mind. "The last thing you need is to think about that night."

"Maybe that's exactly what I need," Izaya countered. "Maybe we both need to fall deep down into hell and recall every little detail about that night if we ever want to make sense of it." Izaya could tell that Shizuo wanted to protest, so he cut him off before the man had a chance to do it. "Don't," he hissed as he raised his hand and covered Shizuo's mouth with it. "We're doing this, got it?"

Shizuo glowered at him for only a few moments before gently pushing Izaya's injured hand away. "Fine," he growled as he took out his keys and then proceeded to unlock the door.

Izaya followed Shizuo inside, not really afraid of being alone with the beast of his nightmares after all the things they'd been through together over the past few months. An angry Shizuo still scared him sometimes, but in general, Izaya was aware that the man would never do a repeat of that night. Smirking, he sat down on the couch without waiting for an invitation, his smirk widening when he saw the blond glowering at him. "Okay, so how do we do this?"

"I don't know," Shizuo admitted with a frown. What Fujita Shizuka had advised him to do sounded like a good start, but he couldn't follow her advice when the flea was present. If anything, he doubted he could make any progress with the bastard there.

"Let's start with the beginning," Izaya suggested as he found a more comfortable position while Shizuo was pacing the living room, clearly nervous. "How did you feel when you read the letter sent by Kasu-chan?"

"I felt hopelessness," Shizuo replied, surprisingly the flea with his quick answer, "and then when I saw you passing me by and looking as though you didn't have a care in the world, I hated you even more because you were the reason why I lost my job in the first place. You were the reason why my brother was disappointed in me."

"That's not―"

"I know," Shizuo said, interrupting him. "I know that it's my fault for always giving in to my anger, but that's what I felt at that moment."

"Only anger, huh?" Izaya asked mockingly.

"I don't know!" Shizuo shouted. "This was a bad idea. I can't focus with you breathing down my neck," he then growled in annoyance.

Izaya stood up, grabbed Shizuo by the shirt and then dragged him near the wall.

"What are you...?" Shizuo asked, brows furrowed in confusion, only to gasp when Izaya grabbed his hand and placed it around the frail neck he remembered trying so hard not to break that night.

Izaya swallowed nervously and then chuckled, but he could tell that Shizuo wasn't buying it and that the blond could see just how nervous he was. "Now close your eyes and try to remember what you felt when you finally caught me. Just don't break my neck, okay?" he then added as a joke, but his voice and the way his body was slightly trembling was giving away the fear he was trying so hard to overcome.

"Flea," Shizuo started in a gentle voice, "is the answer really worth you torturing yourself like this?" Izaya nodded, and even though Shizuo hated to do this to him, he couldn't deny the man when he was so desperate for an answer. "Okay, we'll do this, but remember that you have the power to stop it at any time," he made it clear as he slowly pushed Izaya into the wall. He then closed his eyes and tried to remember how he'd felt having the illusive prey finally in his grasp.

"What do you remember, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asked as he stared in wonder at the man before him who seemed to have such a hard time playing the role of the beast they both knew existed deep within him.

"I remember thinking that I wouldn't let you go until I had broken all the bones in your body, until I made you scream in agony," Shizuo answered, feeling sick just recalling the intense madness that had overtaken him that night. "I also remember being shocked at how you could still laugh in that situation. It made me furious that even though I could so easily break your neck, you still had the courage to mock me. How about you? What did you feel?"

"I was annoyed at first, but also worried because it was unusual for you to just quietly stare at me," Izaya admitted. "And then, when you dragged me towards the end of the alley and I saw the madness and rage in your eyes, I knew that I had to get away from you."

"That's when you flicked open the switchblade," Shizuo recalled.

"What did you mean when you said that I would never think of coming back after that night? At that time, had you already decided that you would rape me?" Izaya asked and then yelped in surprise when Shizuo peeled him off the wall, much like that night, and dragged him towards the hallway. Under any other circumstance, he would've fought back, but not this time. This time, he would play along. Once Shizuo released him, Izaya flicked open his switchblade and then waited for Shizuo to light up a cigarette.

"No, at that point, I was only planning to beat the shit out of you," Shizuo answered as he took out a cigarette and lit it up. "The door is behind you by the way. You can leave any time you want," Shizuo reminded him before taking a drag from the cigarette.

"I'm not going anywhere, not until you give me my answer," Izaya made it clear. "Anyway, you're supposed to advance towards me next," he reminded the beast before him and then pretended to attack, only to allow himself to get caught much like that night. He didn't wait for Shizuo to squeeze his wrist and instead released the switchblade, his heart beating fast with dread as he recalled the humiliating position he had been put in next. He could barely hear his own words when he addressed the surprisingly calm-looking man gently holding his wrist. "I'm not kneeling at your feet," he made it clear. "Never again."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Shizuo said, eyes closed, and then raised his fist, remembering how much he'd wanted to bash the louse's head in.

Izaya flinched in response, something he immediately felt embarrassed about because he hated being reminded that he was no longer the fearless Informant who would smirk in the face of danger without batting an eye. "What are you thinking?" he asked the blond who looked like he was really concentrating on trying to remember. To his surprise, Shizuo lowered his head, looking embarrassed. "Tell me," Izaya demanded.

Shizuo lowered his fist, fingers twitching. "I told you some time ago," Shizuo uttered softly, "I was turned on by the sight of you licking your bloody lips, of you finally being at my mercy."

"But why?" Izaya found the strength to ask even though he was starting to feel dizzy. "It's not like you haven't beat up other men before."

"I... I don't know," Shizuo hissed in frustration as he started squeezing Izaya's wrist without even realizing it.

"Ow, you're hurting me," Izaya whined and tried to pull away. He was met with resistance, but only for the two seconds it took Shizuo to come back to his senses.

"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Shizuo asked, sounding frantic as he reached for Izaya's wrist to inspect the damage, only to stop when he realized that touching the man after just hurting him would be a bad idea.

"I'm fine," Izaya answered as he gently rubbed his wrist. "It doesn't even hurt anymore," he then added as he forced himself to smile. "Why did you squeeze so hard though? What did you remember?"

"I don't know!" Shizuo shouted, feeling extremely frustrated with the whole thing. "I don't fucking know, okay?"

"You do know!" Izaya countered. "That's why you're angry. Because you can't accept the truth."

"You make it sound like you already know what my answer will be," Shizuo remarked with a frown as his eyes narrowed into slits.

Izaya shrugged. "I have my suspicions."

"Then please, do enlighten me!"

"No, you need to figure out by yourself," Izaya snorted, dismissing him with a flick of his hand.

Shizuo growled in annoyance and he had to take a deep breath to calm down enough to not tell the flea to fuck off. "And when exactly did you figure it out?"

"Sometimes last night while I was beating the shit out of the idiots who hurt Kasu-chan," Izaya replied with a smile as he recalled just how good it'd felt to take out all of his anger on those assholes who didn't deserve any mercy.

"That explains the bandages..." Shizuo said as he stared at Izaya's hands. He'd wondered what had happened but he hadn't asked because he didn't want to fight with the flea since Izaya would surely tell him that it was none of his business. "What happened to those guys anyway?"

Izaya shrugged. "Who knows? I left Sato-san to take care of them. I trust him. After all, it's in his best interest to make me happy if he wants his son to get the justice he deserves. But anyway, have you figured it out yet? No, still nothing?" he asked and shook his head in disappointment when Shizuo looked away. "Seriously, just how stupid are you?"

"Enough!" Shizuo growled as he grabbed Izaya by the arm, opened the door and pushed him out of the apartment. "The more you piss me off, the harder it'll be for me to give you your fucking answer. Now leave me the hell alone!" he then roared and slammed the door closed. He waited in the hallway for a good minute, but when the flea remained silent, Shizuo finally made his way to the couch where he sat down, rested his elbows on his legs and grabbed blonde locks with twitching fingers.

The truth was that he didn't want to know, because every time he thought about it, it felt as though he couldn't breath. He suspected that even taking a peek inside that part of himself would completely destroy him and that wasn't something he was looking forward to.

Chapter 111: Hell to Pay

It only took Izaya a couple of days to get over the anger of not getting an answer because the more he thought about it, the more he realized that having high expectations of a protozoan was foolish. Heiwajima Shizuo was not exactly known for being highly intelligent and Izaya knew that the only way to get the idiot to give him an answer was to actually help him find said answer and most importantly, to have patience. Even so, he was still proud of himself for not panicking and acting completely pathetic during their reenactment. Furthermore, it gave him hope that one day he would be able face Shizuo and not only be able to get past that crippling fear he couldn't help but feel sometimes but also to no longer see the beast as a danger. Perhaps it was just a dream, but Izaya still hoped because he was tired of being afraid and wanted to go back to being the fearless Informant everyone knew, even if the new him could never really be the same.

"Is there something we need to worry about?" Sato Jinpachi asked when a frown appeared on the Informant's face.

Sighing, Izaya shook his head to get rid of those thoughts and focused on the situation at hand. "No, everything is fine," he assured the other as he pushed a reluctant Onishi inside Kuro's apartment. "Now get to his computer and see if you can find any clue as to where he hid the videos. He then turned to Jinpachi who looked like he wanted to destroy that whole apartment for the simple reason of belonging to someone who had hurt his son. "Sato-san, I'm curious why you didn't go catch Kuro and his group with the rest of the Awakusu-kai and instead chose to come here."

"No matter how much I want to kill that man, I care more about my son than about revenge, so before I can punish that monster, I need to make sure that the video is found and that the world will never know what they did to Reiji," Jinpachi answered in a pained voice and proceeded to go through the drawers in Kuro's room. "Besides," he then added without raising his head and looking at Izaya, "someone has to be here to look after you two in case you run into trouble."

"Thank you, Sato-san, but I assure you, I can take care of myself," Izaya said with a smirk.

"But I can't," Onishi whimpered in a pathetic voice as he started the computer.

Izaya smacked him over the head. "What am I, chopped liver? Now get to work!" He then waited until Onishi did just that before moving away and starting to look around the apartment. "Let me know if you find anything."

"Will do, Orihara-san!" Onishi answered quickly.

Now that the other two men were busy, Izaya took a few moments to really look at the apartment. He'd suspected that Kuro would be someone obsesses with cleanliness and that turned out to be true. The apartment might have been spotless and the opposite of that of Shizuo's, but Izaya didn't like it. It almost looked like the person living there didn't even bother to personalize his living space in any way. Some could say that Izaya's apartment wasn't that cozy either, but it still felt more welcoming than this cold-looking place with barely anything in it to decorate it. Izaya most certainly didn't like being there and he couldn't wait to find what they were looking for and leave.

Unfortunately, the task proved harder than he had imagined. After spending almost half an hour going through things, they couldn't find anything that had to do with Reiji nor any indication of where it might be. Onishi had found some files Kuro had gathered on certain people on an external hard-drive though, so Izaya ordered him to destroy the data just in case.

"Where would a psycho hide his dirty secret...?" Izaya uttered as his eye roamed around the man's bedroom, feeling extremely annoyed that they weren't finding the video. It had to be somewhere in this apartment though, of that he was certain.

"Orihara-san, I think I found something!" Sato shouted and rushed towards the bedroom. "I think this may be it," he said as he handed Izaya a small box with several flash drives inside. "Reiji's name is in there, Orihara-san, but there's also... I don't know how to say it, so you better see for yourself," he then added, still baffled by the discovery.

There, inside the box, Izaya saw Shizuo's name and he suddenly felt nauseous just remembering what was on it.

"Do you think they...?"

"No! This... this is not that," Izaya said as he picked up the flash drive and shoved it inside the pocket of his jacket. "Nothing happened. It was a mistake, but luckily no one got hurt in the end."

"Okay," Sato said with a nod, figuring that it was none of his business to begin with. Still, he couldn't say that he was surprised to find out that Izaya might've sent Kuro and his gang after Shizuo.

I should've known better, Izaya thought angrily as he kept squeezing the flash drive. At that moment, he hated himself for stupidly believing Kuro's words when the man had said that there were no more copies of the video they had taken of Shizuo. To make the whole situation worse, Sato Jinpachi had seen the name on the flash drive and now the man surely was wondering what Kuro and his gang had done to Shizuo. Izaya knew that he shouldn't care about what other people thought of Shizuo, but he didn't like the idea of anyone else but him knowing how powerless Shizuo could become if the circumstances were just right.

"Orihara-san, are you sure there are no more copies of this?" Jinpachi asked, worried about the whole thing and also because he wanted to change the subject since the man standing before him seemed to be extremely upset about the discovery of Ikebukuro's strongest name on one of those flash drives.

"Yes, I am certain. Onishi here hacked their emails and from their conversations, he gathered that only Kuro had copies of the videos they had taken. I guess it's because the man couldn't trust the others with something that could get him sent him to prison," Izaya answered as he continued to stare at an invisible spot on the floor. The discovery had rattled him and it was hard to focus on the situation when he had to decide whether or not he should tell the blond. Still, he knew that he couldn't afford to dwell on it for too long, so he raised his head and extended his free hand. "Give me the box, I'll make sure these people know that they have nothing to fear anymore."

Jinpachi nodded and handed the Informant the box, only keeping the flash drive which had on it the video those monsters had taken of his son.

"Are you going to watch it?" Izaya couldn't help but ask since he knew that the man was considering it.

"I want to know what they did to him, but I don't think Reiji would want me to watch it," Jinpachi admitted as he pocketed the flash drive.

"Put yourself in his shoes for a second. Would you want others to see you like that? I for one would most certainly not. Don't watch it; you will regret it if you do," Izaya said and hoped that the man would heed his advice. No one deserved that embarrassment on top of the degradation they had already suffered. With that said, he left Jinpachi to think about it while he went to Onishi. "Are you done?"

The hacker nodded.

"Good. I'll take care of the rest, so you can go now."

Onishi hastily made his way out of the apartment while Sato Jinpachi waited for Izaya to finish what he was doing before they too left, but not before Izaya sent a message to Shiki to let him know that it was done and that they could proceed with the next step of the plan.

***

Akihito was a nobody, or at least that's what he thought people saw him as. That's why he wanted to join the Awakusu-kai, to finally be somebody. What he didn't expect however was to be ordered to play bait to catch a group that even the Awakusu-kai saw as monsters. His train of thought was momentarily interrupted as a heavy fist made contact with his face, the impact sending him back to the floor from where he'd tried to get up. It hurt like hell and he was tempted to just tell them the truth to make it stop, but he feared Shiki and the Awakusu-kai far more than these men who were getting a kick out of beating the shit out of him.

He'd been into fights before, but he'd never been in such a vulnerable position, tied up and at their mercy and it scared him. He also didn't like the way the men were looking at him, with hunger in their eyes, like he was nothing but an object for them to use for their own sick amusement. Shiki had assured him that nothing besides a possibly really bad beating would happen, but judging by the way these men were getting more and more excited as they kicked him around like a rag doll, he feared that they might take things further.

A boot made contact with his jaw and he could've sworn he blacked out because when he opened his still working eye again, the leader was no longer sitting on the chair looking bored but was looming over him, his expression one of annoyance.

"Good, you're still alive," Kuro said before he turned to his men. "Don't kill him or permanently main him. That wasn't the job. And don't make me warn you again," he then added as he made his way back to the chair he'd been sitting on the whole time while his men were having fun kicking around some random guy Kuro couldn't care less about.

Once in a while, the client allowed him to get creative with the torture, but this was not the case and Kuro found himself thinking about Shizuo and how much he wished that Izaya had not called off the whole thing just as he was about to have the blond's lips wrapped around his dick. Heiwajima Shizuo would've been his ultimate prey simply because the man was exactly the opposite of that. Heiwajima Shizuo was a predator and in Kuro's opinion, nothing beat dominating someone who until then had never known what it was like to be at someone's mercy.

Kuro had half a mind to go after Shizuo again but this time to take him to some place that only he knew about and fuck him senseless until the blond would even forget his own name. He was tempted because when it came right down to it, there was no joy in dominating weaklings who would beg the second they got hurt even a little bit. Shizuo however would most likely take weeks or even months to break, or perhaps the man would never truly break. Just thinking about it made him hard but he didn't care if his men saw it because at the end of the day they were all monsters who got off on other people's pain. The whole thing with Shizuo might have been a job at first, but Kuro had to admit that he was spending far too much time thinking about the blond.

Twice he could've had the man and twice that disgusting human being that was Orihara Izaya had interrupted him. The temptation to hurt the Informant was high, but that was a complication he did not want to deal with. It looked like the memory of Shizuo at his mercy would have to be enough. A dark chuckle slipped past his lips but his men paid him no mind since they were too distracted by the sounds of pain their target couldn't supress. He still couldn't believe that Izaya thought he had no other copy of the video they had taken that day inside the warehouse. Kuro had lost count how many times he came while watching it and seeing the abject horror on the blond's face when he realized that there was no way out and that he would end up being their little bitch. More like his bitch, since he might not have shared him even back then.

This train of thought was dangerous though, so he softly shook his head and tried to remind himself that going after Heiwajima Shizuo and getting Orihara Izaya pissed was a complication he did not need in his life. This whole thing he was doing to get money only worked if he didn't piss off dangerous people, and seeing how Izaya had a lot of connections, it was best to not make the man angry. Maybe later on he would finally go after the ultimate prey that was Heiwajima Shizuo, but not before he made sure that he had enough money to last him a lifetime.

He was just about to tell his men to wrap it up and dump the guy somewhere on the streets when the doors to the warehouse opened and he jumped to his feet, switchblade in hand and ready to fight whoever thought it would be a good idea to get involved. Unfortunately, he realized that fighting might be futile when a group of people spilled in, too many for him and his men to stand a chance of winning against. Even so, he was still seriously considering it.

"Your operation is now closed," Kuro heard a voice from somewhere outside and the sea of people parted to make a path.

Shiki walked in, his eyes locked on Kuro who looked like he couldn't decide whether or not to try and fight his way out of there. "You won't be able to get out of here," he assured him, and he could tell by the anger on the man's face that he knew it to be true.

"Why are you doing this?" Kuro said even as some of Shiki's men made his way to the guy they had been beating up until then. "Is it because of that guy? He's a nobody! I made sure of it before taking this job."

"That guy?" Shiki said, finally looking at Akihito. "He was bait, nothing more, nothing less."

"What is the problem then?" Kuro growled, feeling his composure slipping away. He was not used to feeling trapped and the possibility that he was utterly screwed was growing stronger by the second.

"You'll find out soon enough. Now I suggest you surrender peacefully if you don't want to risk accidentally getting killed by my men," Shiki said before he turned around and made his way out of the warehouse.

Kuro considered his options one last time and reluctantly dropped the switchblade and raised his hands, not doubting for a second that they wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he fought back. They certainly looked blood-thirsty enough and the fact that they had guns was what ultimately made him decide that it would be best to do as they said.

"Sick fucks..." Akihito hissed as he walked past him with the help of two men. "I hope you burn in hell," he then added and spat on the ground in disgust. Once outside, he struggled to push past the pain he felt in every fiber of his body and walked in the direction of Shiki's car. "Shiki-san..." he then addressed the Awakusu-kai Executive slowly while trying to gather the courage to say what he wanted to say. A few moments of silence passed and he swallowed the lump in his throat before he finally managed to speak again. "I know you said I can join the Awakusu-kai if I do this, but I... I don't think I want to... not anymore. I think I want to go back to school," he admitted in a trembling voice as he continued to stare at the ground.

"I think that's a good idea," Shiki said and got in the car, feeling bad over putting the kid though something like this but at the same time glad that his plan had worked. When Izaya had asked him to get someone to play bait, Shiki had immediately thought of this kid who was trying to join the Awakusu-kai. It wasn't that he didn't think the kid wouldn't make a good Awakusu-kai member, but Shiki always thought that Akihito didn't belong in their world. He wanted the kid to finish school and then have a decent life, and he knew that showing him just how bad it could get if he got involved with the Yakuza might just give him that push he needed to make the right decision. Overall, he was glad that this whole thing was going to be solved soon since he didn't want people like Kuro and his men operating inside the city.

***

It was dark outside by the time Izaya and Sato arrived at the place where the Awakusu-kai had taken Kuro and his men, which was the same building where they had kept Genjiro and his minions until Sato made sure that neither of them would ever open their mouths about Kasuka to the police.

Izaya almost considered not going inside, but in the end realized that he couldn't pass up the chance to seeing Kuro looking miserable. Unlike him, there was fire in Sato's eyes and Izaya almost felt sympathy for Kuro knowing what he now knew of Sato Jinpachi. "I'd like to have a few minutes with him before you go in," Izaya told the man who nodded in response even though it was obvious how much he was looking forward to making him suffer.

Putting on a smirk, he opened the door and walked in, enjoying the look of shock on Kuro's face.

"You're behind this?" Kuro hissed, unable to hide his anger and frustration regarding the whole situation.

"Not at all. I merely provided the names of those responsible for what happened to Reiji," Izaya answered with a shrug as he grabbed the chair and moved it closer to where Kuro was chained to the floor like an animal. Kuro's men were in another room, which meant that they could freely speak.

"Reiji?" Kuro asked in confusion. "You mean that nobody some rich kid paid us to humiliate?"

"That's where you're wrong," Izaya said, his smirk widening in anticipation to seeing the fear on Kuro's face when he realized just how badly he'd fucked up. "Reiji isn't some nobody, he's Sato Jinpachi's kid, a loyal member that has been with the Awakusu-kai for quite some time."

Kuro's eyes widened at first in disbelief and then in horror. "I couldn't have known," he hissed and his chains rattled when he pulled at them in anger. "I checked his family and the kid had someone else registered as his father, some nobody who wouldn't have been able to do anything about it."

"Yes, well, the mother did not wish for her child to grow up with a Yakuza for a father."

"You seem to be enjoying this," Kuro remarked and tried to keep the bitterness he felt out of his voice. Now that he knew why the Awakusu-kai had come after him, he was aware just how badly he'd fucked up and he was really starting to worry that he might not make it out of it alive. He still hoped however that they might not kill him for the sole reason that he hadn't fucked the kid. His men were doomed though, of that he was certain. Still, it pissed him off to no end that Orihara Izaya had a hand in it and he wanted nothing more than to wipe that disgusting smirk off the man's face, preferably very slowly and painfully.

"Let's just say that I think Tokyo is safer without you on the streets," Izaya replied bluntly.

"But it's safe with you? Ha!" Kuro mocked him. "You're just as bad as I am! To begin with, you hired me to break Heiwajima Shizuo by whatever means necessary. You're no better than I am."

Izaya was offended by the remark and he had to close his eye for a moment to calm down enough to not punch the man. It wasn't that he was against punching the bastard, it was just that he didn't want Kuro to know how badly that accusation had upset him. "I'm nothing like you," he eventually said in a calm voice. "I merely hired you because I wanted back something that Shizu-chan had taken from me."

Kuro rolled his eyes. "Keep telling yourself that if it'll help you sleep better at night."

"Whatever," Izaya said and stood up. "It doesn't change the fact that you're the one chained up and that you're probably going to die by Sato-san's hands." He then took out the flash drive and tried to keep his expression neutral even though he was really pissed off about it. "Looks like you lied about there being no other copy."

Kuro smirked in response. "I guess I did. You can't blame me for needing insurance, though in Shizuo's case, I kept it for personal reasons. I lost count how many times I came watching the expression on his face when he realized that he would be forced to suck my dick. Someone like him, who has never known defeat, to be completely dominated like that, can you even imagine it?"

"It's not that difficult to force people into doing things they don't want to do. You got Shizu-chan to comply to some of your requests because you threatened his family. Anyone can do that," Izaya snorted in disgust. "It means nothing." Kuro looked pissed, which made Izaya want to keep going if only to see the bastard lose his shit. "That stupid beast is my toy to play with and to keep on breaking until I get bored."

"I didn't know you two fuck," Kuro hissed, eye twitching.

"We don't have that type of relationship," Izaya snorted, sounding disgusted. "You think you got him tamed, but you don't. You don't know the real Shizu-chan until you're facing each other and there's nothing stopping him from ripping your head off. His abnormal strength is fearsome, but you're too blinded by your little victory to see that."

"It almost sounds like you admire him," Kuro noted mockingly.

"Admire him?" Izaya asked, his expression going blank and his tone almost devoid of emotion. "Realizing a fact is not admiration, it's simply being able to accept an undeniable truth. Heiwajima Shizuo is extremely dangerous and that's a fact I've learned over the years. You on the other hand are nothing. You are irrelevant to this city. You are nothing more than a disgusting rat that's going to be put down very soon, and I'm going to make sure that the people you hurt know that the monster who destroyed their lives is dead and the blackmail material gone, so that maybe one day, they will finally be able to sleep well at night."

"Why do you even care about those people? They're nothing to you," Kuro hissed as he pulled harder on the chains.

"It's because I love humans, that's why," Izaya said as he grabbed a fistful of Kuro's hair. "Don't you find it ironic how the wheel always turns? Right now, you're the one who's at other people's mercy." Smirking, he pulled harder on the black hair until Kuro could no longer suppress a small sound of pain. "Who knows what Sato-san is going to do to you? You know how ruthless the Yakuza can be. Maybe he's going to take your eyes out, or maybe he's going to cut off that disgusting dick of yours, shove it down your throat and do to you all the things you sick fucks did to Reiji. I hope he doesn't do that though. I hope he's better than that, better than you," he then added and roughly pulled on the black locks one last time before releasing the man.

"You're making this awfully personal even though I have never done anything to you," Kuro remarked, feeling slightly confused about the whole thing.

"I just really hate people like you," Izaya answered after a few awkward moments of silence, finally realizing that maybe talking to Kuro had been a bad idea. Clearly he'd said more than he should've.

"People like me? What does that even mean?"

"You rape people and you enjoy all of it because you're fucked up in the head. You're far too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely in this city," Izaya said and hoped that the answer would satisfy Kuro. "Anyway, I'm going to be off now. Enjoy the rest of your very short life~" he chirped as he waved good bye, not even sparing the man a second glance.

"Fuck you, you piece of shit!" Kuro shouted after him. "I'm going to get out of here no matter what and I'm going to fuck you up! Mock my word, Orihara Izaya, I'm going to make you regret ever meeting me!"

"That's enough!" Sato Jinpachi growled as he walked in, his whole body trembling with the effort it took to not go up to Kuro and bash his head in right then and there. "Try not to make too much noise since I want you to hear the screams of your men until they give their last breaths, and then, when they're finally gone, I'm going to come for you, and even though you didn't rape my son, I'm going to make you beg for death by the time I'm done because you're just as much of a monster as the rest of them."

Kuro shot him a mocking look. "Do your best, old man. I'm not scared of some pathetic Awakusu-kai member who only ever drives other people around."

Jinpachi's trembling suddenly stopped while his eyes widened and his smirk almost split his face in two. "Driver? Who said I was a driver?" The confusion on the other man's face was obvious, so Jinpachi continued as he sauntered across the room. "Do you know why I drive other Awakusu-kai members around? Well, do you?"

Kuro reluctantly shook his head, curious to find out what this man was trying to say.

"It's because every time I get into a fight, I can't stop myself from completely crushing my opponent," Jinpachi said with an insane smile on his face as he approached Kuro, grabbed him by the jaw and brutally banged his head against the wall behind him. "I'm too dangerous even for the Awakusu-kai," he continued, his expression growing crueler by the second. "I bring unwanted attention to the group because I find it close to impossible to stop until the one I see in front of me is dead."

"Fuck―"

Before Kuro could even finish the sentence, Jinpachi banged the bastard's head against the wall again and released him, looking completely serious as he spoke the next works. "Fuck me? Oh no, there will be no fucking tonight, or any other night, I promise, even though I want nothing more than to find a few monsters just like you who wouldn't mind pounding your ass until you cry. I've thought about it, but I decided that doing something like that would be an insult to my son. I'm going to punish you my way. I'm going to hurt you until you'll beg me to kill you, and then, when I'm done with all of you fucks, I'll go after that piece of shit who hired you and teach that rich bastard that actions have consequences. Being Yakuza cost me the woman I loved and a son, and those horrible things you did to my son will cost all of you your lives."

"Just so you know, I wouldn't have taken the job if I knew he was your kid, so ultimately, it's your fault for not fighting harder to keep them," Kuro said in the hope of making him feel guilty for what had happened to Reiji, but judging by the stony expression on the other man's face, it didn't look like it was working.

"I'll see you soon," Jinpachi promised and then made his way out of the room because he knew that if he stayed there another moment, he might really end up killing the man before he even had a chance to punish him. It didn't look like Kuro was taking him seriously, but Sato Jinpachi had a feeling that the monster would learn to fear him by the time he was done with the other men.

***

It was a little before midnight and Izaya still hadn't gone home. He'd kept walking for a long time, trying to decide whether or not to give Shizuo the flash drive. There was no doubt in his mind that the thing needed to be destroyed. After all, no one else but Izaya himself was allowed to see the beast who had broken him looking so pathetic. It pissed Izaya off because the Shizuo in that video and the Shizuo he'd come to know in that alley were like two completely different people. Everyone else knew Shizuo as the guy with abnormal strength who beat people up when they pissed him off or when they didn't pay their debts, but Izaya had seen the extremes of this man, both the beast and the human residing inside one idiotic blond who couldn't even give him one simple answer.

Before he even realized what he'd done, Izaya felt pain in his hand and that's when he knew that he'd punched the nearby wall. Luckily, no one was around, but that still didn't stop him for feeling shame over losing his temper like that. "Damn you, Shizu-chan," he uttered brokenly as he gently massaged his injured hand, but instead of heading home, his feet led him in the direction of the beast's apartment.

Several times Izaya stopped in his tracks and almost turned around and went home, but in the end he kept going until he found himself in front of the blond's apartment. "Shizu-chan, open up," Izaya said softly after he knocked a few times. When the idiot didn't answer, Izaya raised his hand, intending to ring, but the door slowly opened, revealing a messy mop of blond hair.

"Why are you here at this hour?" Shizuo asked in a tired voice as he kept blinking to chase away the sleepiness. "Couldn't this wait until tomorrow? I already told you, I'll give you your answer when I'll have it."

"It's not about that."

Izaya's strange expression made Shizuo uncomfortable, and he found himself taking a few steps backwards on instinct. "Why are you here?" he asked once again, the sleepiness he'd felt earlier quickly disappearing.

"There's something I want to give you," Izaya said and handed him the flash drive.

Shizuo saw his name on it, which further reinforced his previous worries that whatever Izaya had to say, it was something Shizuo wouldn't want to hear. Still, he needed to know. "What is this?"

"It's the video Kuro's men took of you," Izaya replied and braced for the outburst of anger he knew was surely coming by tightening his hold around the switchblade in his left pocket. Instead, Shizuo's shoulders slumped and the beast looked like he might fall apart at any moment.

"Of course you kept copies of the video..." Shizuo said brokenly as he pretty much collapsed on the couch, the thing falling from his slack fingers a few moments later and hitting the floor with a sound that was too loud in the deafening silence.

Izaya wanted to say that he hadn't expected such an accusation, but the truth was that he had. "No, you idiot, I didn't keep any copies!" he hissed in annoyance.

Shocked by the answer, Shizuo's head snapped up. "Then what is that?"

"Remember how I told you about this kid Kuro and his men really messed up?"

Shizuo nodded.

"Well, that kid is Sato Jinpachi's son. Reiji doesn't know that a Yakuza member is his real father, but anyway, the Awakusu-kai helped me capture Genjiro and his idiotic minions and in return I helped them find the video they took of Reiji and I also came up with a plan to capture Kuro and his men. Kuro had yours in a box along with all these others," Izaya said as he pulled a bag out of his right pocket that was filled with flash drives. "I didn't know, okay? I thought Kuro deleted the only available copy after he sent me the video. "Anyway, I gave you the only copy in existence because it's yours, so you decide what you want to do with it. The only thing I want right now is the truth, and I hope that you'll give me the answer, just as I have given you the choice to do whatever you want with that video."

Without hesitation, Shizuo picked up the flash drive and crushed it in his hand. "Thanks," he said as he raised his head and looked Izaya in the eye. "Really, thank you, not just for this but for a lot of things. You're not the insect I used to think you were for so long. You can actually be a good person when you want to."

"Stop it, Shizu-chan, it sounds disgusting coming from you," Izaya said as he shoved the bag back into his pocket.

"What are you going to do with those?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask.

"I'm going to find these people and tell them that they no longer have to fear those bastards who hurt them," Izaya said with a frown as he tried to stop imagining all the fucked up things that might be on those videos. "And don't tell me that I'm a good person again because I'm going to stab you in the face. It's gross."

"Okay, I won't," Shizuo said as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"It's just that I really hate this sort of thing," Izaya revealed and then continued even though he didn't need to explain himself. "You can't understand. You just... you can't. I mean, you have an idea but you'll never understand." He didn't know what he expected Shizuo to say, but the words that came out of the beast's mouth couldn't have surprised him more.

"It's thanks to you that I don't. You saved me," Shizuo said as he stared at the broken flash drive he was still holding in his hand. "I was stupid and I hurt you but in the end you still saved me."

Izaya laughed, but he wasn't exactly amused. "You can keep on believing that, but the truth is that Adabashi told me to call Kuro, so I did. I wouldn't have stopped anything if that sadist hadn't threatened to crush my already stabbed eye with his thumb."

"It doesn't matter, I'm still―" Shizuo started but couldn't finish because Izaya's phone rang, their discussion now interrupted by whoever was calling the flea so late at night. "I'll go to my room while you take the call," he said, but Izaya asked him to stay there, the request making Shizuo blink in surprise since he couldn't understand what it was about. He could only hope that it wasn't Ruri and that something bad hadn't happened to Kasuka. He already felt guilty for not visiting his brother ever since the incident with Genjiro and the police, but he thought that maybe Kasuka needed some time for himself.

"Hello?" Izaya answered, unable to hide just how surprised he was by the call.

"Orihara-san, it's been a while," Ueda said in a cheerful voice as though he was talking to a long lost friend. "I'm going to be in Tokyo in a couple of days, and I wanted to invite you to my birthday party."

"I don't think that would be a good idea..." Izaya replied, his eye glued to Shizuo who was giving him a confused look.

"It's fine, don't worry about it! It'll be good for you. I'm going to introduce you to some powerful people who will surely seek your services in the future."

"Still, I don't know if―"

"And bring your partner too. I'll text you the time and the address in a minute. I'll see you there!"

Izaya wanted to say once again that the whole thing was a bad idea, but he didn't get a chance to say another word because Ueda ended the call, the man clearly not taking no for an answer. Izaya's hand fell limply to his side and he let out a sound of annoyance.

Finally,  Shizuo decided that it was a good a time as any to ask. "Who was that?"

"Ueda Shou called to invite us both to his birthday party," Izaya replied, frowning.

"Ueda who?" Shizuo asked as he tried to recall why the name sounded familiar.

"Really?" Izaya snorted. "You'd think even you would remember the man who captured you and had his men keep you prisoner at gun point. What's next, you're going to tell me you forgot about the kiss I had no choice but to give you?"

"Ah," Shizuo exclaimed and cringed just a little bit as he remembered the awkward situation the two of them had to endure. "I'm not going."

"Of course you are!" Izaya almost shouted. "He'll surely doubt our little lie if I can't even bring you there after claiming that the two of us were together, and the last thing I need right now is another complication. You're going and that's the end of it," Izaya hissed the order and with that he stormed out of the beast's apartment, cursing Ueda to hell and back for coming back to Tokyo and seeking him out to invite him to a stupid birthday party Izaya had no desire of going to.

Chapter 112: Sleep Tight

Notes:

I apologize for the long chapter, but for some reason, it didn't feel right to cut it in two.

"What do you think, Doku-chan?" Izaya asked as he squeezed the purring cat tighter to his chest. "Do you think that I shouldn't get involved?"

Yuigadokusonmaru yawned and cuddled deeper into Izaya's warm embrace.

"Kuro was right, you know? Why should I care about those people? Old me wouldn't have even considered helping them. In fact, I think old me would've kept these flash drives just in case. Information is valuable and I'm supposed to be an Informant, right? I could use the videos as blackmail material and get these people to do things for me."

The cat purred louder, clearly either not sensing his owner's distress or simply not caring.

Izaya sighed and grabbed the bag with his free hand, his eyes glued to the flash drives inside. "But I can't do that," he finally concluded in a pained voice. "I can't do it because I know exactly what these people had been put through." His expression twisted in anguish and he squeezed the bag harder in his hand. "I hate this," he hissed. "I hate Shizu-chan. Most of the times I can handle being around him, but sometimes I feel like I can't breathe from him just looking at me, because I know that behind that deceivingly good person lies a monster who might devour me. And yet..."

The bandaged hand squeezed the bag tighter for a few more seconds and then released it, fingers going slack above it. "I... I probably shouldn't say this, let alone think it, but I know that you can keep a secret," Izaya said as he leaned in closer until his lips were almost touching the cat's ear. "If..." he started but trailed off as he stared blankly into space. "No, nevermind, it doesn't matter," he then added and raised his head, a sad smile adorning his face. "What's done is done."

***

The next morning, Izaya was at Shizuo's door before the man even had a chance to get dressed for work. On top of that, judging by the tired eyes glowering at him, it didn't look like the blond had gotten any sleep.

"What now?" Shizuo growled as he stepped away from the door to let the flea in.

"What kind of stupid question is that?" Izaya asked as though he had in front of him the dumbest person to have ever walked the Earth. "I hope you don't expect to be going to Ueda's party in your bartender uniform."

"I'm not going, I already told you," Shizuo grumble as he took a carton of milk out of the fridge. "It's got nothing to do with me," he added and then chugged the whole thing down in one go.

Izaya blinked in disbelief, because of what Shizuo had said but also because of what he'd just witnessed. At that point, it became quite clear that he would have to explain to the idiot frowning at him why exactly they had to go. "It's got nothing to do with you? You dare say that even though everyone who knows or even suspects what you did to me now sees me as nothing more than a victim? A pathetic excuse for a man who couldn't even defend himself? A man who allowed another to fuck him?"

"You didn't allow anything," Shizuo deadpanned.

Izaya actually flinched at the comment, not because of what Shizuo had said, but because it felt as though the one who had said it was none other than the monster he'd met that night, the beast who took great pleasure in showing him that he was nothing more than prey to someone like him. Or perhaps he was imagining it because he hadn't slept much during the past few nights.

"Either way, get dressed, we're going to buy you a suit," Izaya ordered and turned around to head for the couch, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks.

"I'm not going to skip work on the whims of a rich bastard who thinks he can order people around. Why do you even care what he thinks?"

Izaya slowly turned his head to the side, his heart nearly stopping when he was met with Shizuo's angry expression. "What's up with you today?" he couldn't help but ask, his voice so low that for a second he wondered if the beast had even heard him. Shuddering, he tore himself away from Shizuo's grip and put some distance between the two of them, not liking the way Shizuo was looking at him.

"I'm not your goddam puppet!" Shizuo roared suddenly, making Izaya jump out of his skin. "You come to my apartment whenever you want, you order me around, you treat me like an idiot and you keep asking me stupid things even though I already told you my answer!"

Ah, so that's what this is, Izaya thought, and now that he knew what the problem was, he felt himself relaxing again. Clearly, the beast was feeling cornered and it was lashing out. He wanted to tell Shizuo that they could have that discussion another time, but Shizuo continued with his rant, seemingly unable to stop.

"And as if that's not bad enough, you want me to go to this stupid party and pretend that we're together and that I didn't hurt you so badly that I almost killed you. What if we have to kiss, hah?" Shizuo roared yet again and this time his fist made contact with the nearest wall, not completely driving it through but leaving a small crater behind. "Do you even know how hard it is for me to be near you after that night?"

Izaya wasn't known to often lose his temper, but that's exactly what happened when Shizuo's words reached his ears. One moment he was standing near the door to the hallway and in the next one he was punching Shizuo, the unexpected action leaving both of them speechless for a good minute as they stared at each other in shock.

It was Shizuo who broke the silence first. "I'm sorry," he said as he looked him in the eye, finally realizing how insensitive he'd sounded by making it all about himself.

"You should be," Izaya hissed and shoved the hand he'd just used to punch Shizuo inside the pocket of his jacket. "If it's that difficult for you, then imagine how much worse it has to be for me."

"Yeah, you're right," Shizuo agreed, and before Izaya had a chance to react, he grabbed him by the arm and trapped him between his own body and the wall he'd punched less than a couple of minutes earlier. Izaya's uncovered eye went wide and he froze, the switchblade Shizuo was expecting to get pushed against his throat never coming. "See?" Shizuo finally said and pulled away. "You'd have to be blind to not see just how uncomfortable you are simply being this close to me."

"No... I..."

"Last time you put on a show to fool that guy, you crumbled before my eyes the second he was gone," Shizuo reminded him. "I don't want to see that again," he then added in a softer tone. "Please don't make me do something that will bring you pain."

Izaya snorted and pushed Shizuo even further away, now completely annoyed after having been reminded of the pathetic display he'd shown the beast that had broken him. "You're such a hypocrite, Shizu-chan! You say you don't want to hurt me, but we both know how much you enjoyed inflicting pain that night. 'It's supposed to hurt, you dumb-fuck.' Those were your words!"

The words felt like a slap to the face and Shizuo took a couple of steps back, suddenly feeling the need to hide away because of how ashamed he felt over what he'd done.

"Tell me, beast," Izaya hissed the insult, "aren't you tired of pretending? I think we both know that the real you is the monster I had the misfortune of getting acquainted with that night while this nice and caring guy facade is just that, a facade."

Shizuo just stood there, frozen on the spot as he desperately tried to think of a way to prove to the obviously still very much broken man before him that the real Heiwajima Shizuo was not a monster, but the truth was that he wasn't sure himself who exactly he was anymore.

"Well?" Izaya insisted once the silence had stretched for too long.

"I'm not the same person anymore," Shizuo finally said, unable to hide the guilt he was feeling. "A lot of things have happened and I got to know you better. I'm not saying that you don't make me angry and that I will never again hurt you in any way. If you piss me off, I'll probably still break your legs, but I will never again do that! After everything we've been through together, you still don't believe me?" Shizuo asked, sounding completely disappointed.

Izaya's first instinct was to say that he didn't, but the truth was that Shizuo had proven again and again that he could be trusted, at least when it came to some things. "Wait," he said begrudgingly as he raised a hand and took a deep breath. "This is stupid. Sit down for a second," he requested and waited for a confused-looking Shizuo to sit on the couch. Izaya did the same, only that he sat on the opposite side, as far away from the blond as possible. "We both need to calm down. We're fighting because deep down inside, neither of us wants to go," Izaya concluded with a sigh.

"Yeah," Shizuo mumbled as he reached for the cigarette pack he'd left on the coffee table the night before, only to stop, fingers twitching, when he realized that pissing Izaya off even more was not a good idea at that moment. He'd already fucked up enough for the day and it was still early in the morning. "Do you really believe that I'd do it again?" he asked, frowning, as he pulled back his hand. He desperately needed to know.

Izaya turned to Shizuo and their eyes met, but he didn't answer right away because he very much enjoyed the sight of a nervous beast doing his best to not squirm under his gaze. Finally, after a few long minutes of just staring at him, Izaya answered truthfully. "No, I don’t think you would, but every time I see you I get angry and because of that I feel the impulse to hurt you. Don't you feel the same though?" When no reply came, Izaya laughed and moved to sit on the coffee table, now facing the beast. "I see," he chuckled darkly, his voice tinged with a disgust he didn't bother to hide.

"Look, I just don't want to go, okay?" Shizuo muttered as he ran a hand through his hair. "Is it that hard to understand?"

"No, I think I've never seen things clearer," Izaya stated, sounding emotionless, and in the next moment he fisted a hand into Shizuo's T-shirt and pulled him closer until their noses were almost touching, the way Shizuo's eyes had widened and the man had frozen a clear sign that he'd taken the beast by surprise. "I didn't want to go before either, but now I kind of want to go," he revealed, sounding amused. "And you will go, because if you don't, this little charade of you pretending to be a good guy might fall apart and then your parents and everyone who knows you might find out just how much of a monster you are."

"Are you threatening me?" Shizuo growled, finally waking up from the shock of being so close to the flea.

Izaya chuckled darkly as he raised his other hand and mockingly started patting the blond's head like one would a dog. "Threat? I swear, it's almost cute how stupid you are sometimes." Shizuo tried to wrench himself away from his hands, but Izaya didn't let go and instead pulled him back. "You see, Ueda hates people like you, rapists, so I have no doubt that if he were to find out what really happened, he would make sure you paid regardless of my desires. As for me, well, I think I've been humiliated enough for a lifetime, so how about you help me out with this thing so that the both of us can go back to fighting over the usual stuff?"

Shizuo glowered at Izaya for a long time before finally relaxing a bit. "Fine, I'll go, but no kissing."

Izaya rolled his eyes. "I'm certain that won't be a problem."

"Good," Shizuo mumbled before he stood up and headed for the bedroom where he could change and also call his senpai in peace to ask for a day off. He was still very much annoyed about the whole thing, but it really looked like he had no choice but to go.

***

Izaya hated Shizuo, of that he was certain, but he had to admit that the idiot looked really good wearing the expensive suit he was trying on at that moment. The more Izaya looked at him, the more he thought that a stupid beast being this handsome was nothing but a sin against the rest of humanity.

"I think this is good enough," Shizuo muttered and waited for Izaya do give his approval so that they could leave the fucking store already. He'd already tried four other suits and he was one step away from strangling the insect staring at him and suddenly looking annoyed as opposed to amused.

Izaya's eye twitched and he was back to smiling. "It's good, but not good enough," he said and signaled to the woman working there to bring another suit. He could tell that Shizuo was one step away from snapping and destroying the whole store, and he had a feeling that the only reason the beast was trying so hard to control himself was because of the women working there. With a strange expression on his face, Izaya stood up and leaned in until he could whisper into Shizuo's ear. "Tell me, beast, if I had been a woman, would you have still raped me that night?" The question must have taken him by surprise because Shizuo just stood there, eyes wide and staring into space for what seemed like forever before finally looking at him.

"I don't think I would have," Shizuo answered honestly, his voice barely above a whisper.

Izaya laughed, but anyone looking at him could tell that he wasn't really amused. He'd never really thought about such a thing before, but for the first time in his life, he almost wished he'd been born a woman, because maybe, just maybe, the beast wouldn't have seen him as an adversary he needed to crush. If he was a woman, he might've even seduced Ikebukuro's strongest, thus turning his greatest enemy into nothing more than a puppet he could manipulate to his heart's desire. That, of course, did not mean that he couldn't do it as a man as well, but the mere thought of willingly submitting to Heiwajima Shizuo was enough to almost make him throw up right then and there. Luckily, the woman from earlier came back with another suit, thus putting an end to their short discussion.

Shizuo tried to smile as he took the suit from her hands, but he could tell by her expression that he was making her nervous. "Thanks," he said and then went inside the cabin to change, all the while willing himself to calm down enough to not break Izaya's face for making him do this. He understood why Izaya needed him to go to that stupid party, but it didn't mean that Shizuo was looking forward to be there and pretend that everything was great between the two of them and that he hadn't destroyed the man. Frowning, he finished putting on the suit and stepped outside, feeling relief when he saw Izaya's face and could tell that the flea was finally satisfied with the suit.

"We'll take this," Izaya said and took out his credit card, only to be stopped by Shizuo who grabbed him by the wrist as the flea was about to hand it to the woman.

"Can we have a few moments?" Shizuo asked the woman who nodded and quickly left.

"I can pay for my own suit," Shizuo growled, his fingers still wrapped around the flea's wrist.

"You couldn't even afford to pay me for the sink you broke," Izaya reminded him mockingly. "You're dirt poor, beast, and I'm not going to let you disgrace me. If you want to pay for it, feel free to give me back the money when you'll have them. Meanwhile, I suggest you release me, unless you want me to take a few of your fingers as punishment."

Thoroughly humiliated, Shizuo simple released him and walked out of the store, trying to block the sounds of Izaya's mocking laughter but failing to do so. It was moments like these that reminded him just how much he hated the insect and how much he would've loved to punch him straight through the window of the store and hopefully make him land in front of a speeding car. Yes, he still very much hated Orihara Izaya.

***

It was the night of the party and Shizuo was nervously pacing in his living room while he waited for Izaya to arrive. He'd spent almost half an hour trying to do something about his wild hair, only to give up when he realized that he'd just broken the bathroom mirror and that he was seriously considering picking up the sink and throwing it out the window. It was a miracle that his knuckles weren't bleeding, and Shizuo didn't even want to think about how Izaya might have reacted if he'd dirtied the suit, which is why the bastard was the one picking him up and not the other way around. Apparently, the flea didn't want to risk him getting into a fight on his way to Shinjuku.

"Fucking flea," Shizuo muttered under his breath and took another lungful of smoke. There was a knock on the door a moment later and Shizuo nearly choked on the smoke with how much he dreaded going to that stupid party, but he knew that he had no choice so he stubbed out the cigarette and made his way to the door. He hadn't really thought about how Izaya might look, and seeing him in a suit was a huge surprise, but what really shocked him when it came to the flea's appearance was the fact that Izaya was no longer wearing and eyepatch and that the brown-red orb Shizuo was certain that Slon had forever ruined looked just as good as new. "How?" he couldn't help but ask as he stared at Izaya's face, almost forgetting to breathe when he remembered how that night too he'd been mesmerized by Izaya's beautiful visage. Horrified by his own thoughts, he closed his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat, all the while telling himself that noticing such a thing meant nothing because it was impossible to deny that Orihara Izaya was a beautiful creature. "I thought..."

"You thought wrong. Anyway, you look presentable enough, although I now regret not sending you to a salon where they could make your hair look less like that of a wild animal."

Shizuo growled in annoyance but said nothing. He found it difficult to argue when he couldn't tear his eyes away from the flea. Izaya without that stupid jacket looked good. Izaya in a black suit, with a matching pair of black leather gloves to cover the injuries he'd gotten while punching Genjiro and his men, looked breathtaking. Luckily, Shizuo snapped back to reality when the flea started walking away, the momentary respite just what he needed to get his thoughts in order. He quickly locked the door and followed Izaya down the stairs, but he was back to watching the flea whose long black coat started flapping around in the wind the moment they stepped outside of the building and headed for a car that was apparently waiting for them. The driver got out and opened the door for Izaya, but Shizuo warned him with a look to back the fuck off because he could open his own door. The driver simply nodded, thus making Shizuo believe that Izaya must've warned him beforehand not to provoke the person they were going to pick up.

Once inside the car, Izaya turned his head and looked out the window, but he could feel the beast's insistent stare and it made him uncomfortable. He suddenly turned and glowered at the blond, hoping to make him understand that he was being rude, but the beast kept staring, as though he'd been mesmerized by the sight and simply couldn't look away. He had no doubts that Shizuo hated him, but he was also fairly certain that despite everything, the beast wanted him. It didn't look like even Shizuo himself had figured it out yet, or maybe the idiot was simply in denial, but that didn't stop Izaya from wanting to find out exactly what was going on in Shizuo's head even if the thought of the monster wanting him was enough to make his blood run cold. He'd tried not to think about it for a long time, but the more time passed, the more he wanted to understand what had led Ikebukuro's strongest to commit such a vile act. He wanted to know so badly that he was willing to put himself in danger if that was what it took to get his answer.

"We've arrived," the driver announced and got out to open the door for Izaya who was not exactly looking forward to the party.

Once Shizuo was next to him, Izaya wrapped a hand around the beast's nape and pulled him down a bit so that he could whisper into his ear. "Don't embarrass me," he warned and then smiled as he released him.

Shizuo nodded and then followed Izaya inside, already feeling like he wanted to punch those pompous-looking assholes for the simple reason that they didn't seem to have a care in the world while Shizuo himself couldn't go on a second of his life without wishing he'd never been born.

"Calm down," Izaya hissed even while smiling.

Shizuo blinked in surprise since he didn't understand what he'd done wrong, until he realized that he was growling. His cheeks flushed in embarrassment and he felt like hiding under a rock, but luckily it looked like no one besides Izaya had heard him.

"Orihara-san, Heiwajima-san, it's good to see you again!" Ueda exclaimed.

Izaya was rather startled since the man had appeared from behind and had placed a hand on his shoulder, but luckily he had managed to not flinch away or shudder at the unexpected contact. Despite how much progress he'd made, he still very much hated people touching him without permission, even if the touch was in no way sexual. Luckily, the hand quickly disappeared and Shizuo's annoyed expression was enough to bring a smile to his face. "You too, Ueda-san," Izaya said as he shook the man's hand. He then fished a small gift out of the pocket of his coat and handed it to the businessman. "Happy birthday, Ueda-san. Shizuo and I wish you many years of good health and success."

"Thank you!" Ueda replied happily as he shook both their hands. "I'm a little busy greeting people who are still arriving, but I promise that later on tonight we'll talk more."

And with that the man was gone, leaving Shizuo and Izaya to try to mingle with the crowd.

"It didn't cross my mind to buy a present," Shizuo admitted as he followed Izaya out to the balcony where there didn't seem to be many people.

"Of course you didn't," Izaya remarked with a chuckle. "You're socially-challenged after all. Then again, I'm glad you didn't since buying something cheap and giving it to Ueda would've embarrassed me."

"I'm sorry I'm not one of these filthy rich bastards," Shizuo hissed.

"Intelligence aside, you simply lack too many things that are required to become successful," Izaya mused and leaned against the rail. "These people you see here rarely lose their temper, and even if they do commit crimes, they make sure they can't be tied to them. You on the other hand..." he then said as he moved closer until he could whisper into the beast's ear. "You didn't only make the mistake of letting me live, but you also left your DNA inside my body, you disgusting monster." The insult was more a hiss than anything else, and as he pulled back, upper lip curled into a snarl, he was surprise to see that Shizuo wasn't looking at him with guilt written all over his face, but with pity. Anger rushed through him and for a fraction of a second he considered pushing the beast from the balcony, but he quickly came back to his senses and forced himself to look relaxed even as he wanted nothing more than to physically hurt Shizuo. After taking a deep breath, he decided that perhaps it would be best to put some distance between himself and the idiotic beast and maybe mingle with the crowd for a bit.

He was just about to go back inside when he saw Ueda heading in his direction, two people following after him. The shock of seeing someone he never expected to meet again almost made him dizzy, and all he could do was stand there while the businessman appeared to be talking to him. Izaya wasn't hearing a word, not with how fast his heart was beating as he stared in shock at none other than the woman he had met at Ryoan-ji Temple back when he had desperately needed a break from everyone and everything. The woman he'd referred to as Masami addressed him with a smile, but he still could not hear a word. Next thing he knew, Ueda and the other man were leaving with a reluctant Shizuo following after them and he was left alone with the only woman he'd tried to get close to after the nightmare he'd suffered at Shizuo's hands.

Masami's smile disappeared the second they were alone and Izaya took a few deep breaths as he fought to calm down his racing heart. "I..." he started and licked his dry lips. "I never expected to see you again."

"Neither did I," she replied in a soft voice as she moved to stand next to him, her eyes now staring out of the large balcony and at the beautiful garden below.

As the shock of having met her again started to wear off, the first thing that entered Izaya's mind was how good her hand had felt around that part of himself that not even the beast had touched, followed by the shame of having failed to bed her as a result of the trauma inflicted by Ikebukuro's strongest. The shame ran deep and he wished he had never met her again, but there she was, sweet and soft-looking and non-threatening, the exact opposite of Shizuo whose mere touch was enough to make him wonder if the beast might just snap and break his bones. He couldn't deny that a part of him had always enjoyed that rush of danger, but the rest of him craved to be in control, something he'd felt around Masami.

"I never thanked you."

Izaya was so deep in thought that her voice startled him and he looked at her in surprise, wondering what she was talking about.

Sensing his confusion, she continued. "I'm thankful that I had someone to talk to when I was going through a tough time. Back then I was running away from the future my parents had planned for me and a man that I didn't even know but who would become my husband. I gave him a chance though and it all worked out in the end. I love him and I'm happy, and even though we only met because our parents thought that our marriage would be a good business opportunity, I no longer hold it against them."

"I'm happy for you," Izaya said with a genuine smile even though he regretted failing to make this woman his. "Your words helped me as well," he then revealed as he too turned towards the garden. Her smile widened further and Izaya somehow felt at peace, peace that came crashing down the moment he saw the beast glaring at them from down below. It wasn't just him Shizuo was glaring at, but also at Masami who appeared oblivious to the whole thing. His heart nearly stopped when his eyes met those of the beast and Izaya found himself moving away from the edge of the balcony, the possessiveness and jealousy he'd glimpsed in that fraction of a second enough to convince him that his suspicions had been true all along.

"Are you okay?" she asked, brows furrowed in confusion when she noticed just how pale he'd suddenly gotten.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm not a big fan of heights," he lied.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I see. Anyway, I'd better go find my husband. It was nice seeing you again."

Izaya nodded and then watched her walk away before he collapsed on the nearest chair, trying to get his breathing under control. There was what looked like an untouched glass of red wine on the coffee table nearby and Izaya grabbed it and gulped it down, his nervousness increasing as the minutes ticked by and yet the beast was still nowhere to be seen. He'd half-expected Shizuo to come rushing upstairs, grab him by the arm and drag him out of there, but nothing of the sorts happened and Izaya found himself getting up and going inside, desperate for a distraction.

Inside the bathroom, Shizuo was trying to calm down enough to not show the flea anything that might scare him. He'd felt his blood boil at the sight of Izaya looking so comfortable and cheerful around that woman he'd never seen before and the fact that he felt jealousy of all things was enough to scare him more than Kuro ever could. He'd tried telling himself that he was just being protective of the flea because he didn't want him to make an enemy out of that woman's husband since the man appeared to be powerful, not only in terms of strength but also wealthy enough to be able to make someone disappear without a trace. The fact that Izaya had even told him that rich people knew how to get rid of 'inconveniences' without a trace wasn't helping matters either.

But all of that wasn't true. All of that didn't explain why for the first time in his life he'd wanted to break a woman's neck for smiling at Izaya like that. He'd seen women flutter around the flea before, but unlike with all the others, Izaya seemed to actually take her seriously as opposed to trying to charm her for his own benefits.

The idea that he could even feel such a thing was so terrifying that Shizuo could barely breathe, and he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, fearing that he might black out even as the implications of what it all meant swirled around in his head like a whirlwind. His own words came back to him: "because it was you," and Shizuo closed the toilet lid and sat down as he felt the beginning of a panic attack creeping up on him. The panic attack never fully hit him, and instead of sitting there inside a small space, he got up on unsteady legs and made his out outside, desperate for some fresh air. Swallowing nervously, he moved to the farthest corner of the garden and sat on a bench that gave him a good view of the balcony where he'd seen the flea earlier, decided to keep an eye on him and at the same time give him space. Izaya was no longer there, but that was fine because Shizuo was terrified at the thought of the flea having seen through him.

Lowering his head, he closed his eyes and struggled to find the calm within the storm wrecking havoc inside his mind. He desperately needed something to cling to, and he soon realized that his hatred for Izaya was that something. His hatred for the flea was the anchor, that feeling giving him a sense of peace and normality even when it felt as though his world had been turned upside down. The hatred most certainly explained why he'd always wanted to hurt the flea, but it didn't explain why he'd done what he'd done. The only thing that explained why he would even consider forcing himself on another person was if he felt some sort of physical attraction, which he did. He'd already admitted it to himself long ago, and even though most of the time he didn't really think about it, there had been a few times when he'd really noticed the flea in the same way a man would notice a woman. Such thoughts had always been quickly dismissed because of guilt and also out of consideration for the man who didn't deserve the humiliation and the physical and mental pain Shizuo had subjected him to.

This whole time, Shizuo had done his best to reassure Izaya that he wasn't interesting in taking his body again, but with one look he'd destroyed all of that and more. He'd destroyed the trust he'd slowly gained, a trust he knew he would never get back. There was no way Izaya hadn't seen it. With a sound of frustration, he pulled at his dyed locks and swore under his breath, already fearing his encounter with the flea because he dreaded seeing the terror in those brown-red orbs. Shizuo briefly wondered if that night would be the night his heart would get pierced by a switchblade.

There he sat for a long time, his mind falling into a deeper and darker abyss as the seconds turned into minutes and then into hours, until some of the guests started leaving and Shizuo, shocked that Izaya hadn't yet sought him, decided to finally get up and look for him, worried that something might have happened since Izaya had a knack for getting into trouble. There was also the possibility that Izaya had already sneaked out and left him there, but he still wanted to make sure.

With a grunt, he stood up and made his way inside, eyes darting around the place for Izaya.

"Ah, there you are," Ueda said and he approached Ikebukuro's strongest. "I was looking for you. I think Orihara-san has had too much to drink, so I was going to ask you if you could take him home."

A feeling of dread overcame him and all Shizuo could do was nod as he followed the businessman in the direction of what looked like one of the bathrooms.

"He's inside."

Shizuo mumbled a thank you and then waited for the man to disappear before knocking on the door. "Izaya," Shizuo called in a trembling voice, fearful of what a drunk flea might do. There was a thud, like someone had hit something, and a few moments later the door slowly opened, a barely standing flea looking at him with what looked like amusement mixed with disgust.

"Beast," Izaya hissed as he held the door tightly, or as tightly as he could in his state.

Shizuo swallowed nervously, trying to decide how to convince Izaya to follow him willingly so that they could get the hell away from there as quickly as possible, before Izaya's tongue might spill some secrets that neither of them wanted in the open. "It's time to go home," he said as he extended his hand and waited for Izaya to take it, knowing that the flea would put up a fight if he was to be removed from there by force.

Izaya sneered and tried to slap Shizuo's hand away, only to nearly fall face-first as he lost his grip on the door.

Shizuo easily caught him, his whole body freezing when he found himself with a drunken flea in his arms. He felt Izaya shudder, and was surprised to see that the flea wasn't pushing him away or trying to stab him. "Let's get you home," he said in a voice so low that he wondered if Izaya had heard it.

"Home," Izaya repeated tiredly.

Now certain that Izaya wouldn't scream bloody murder, Shizuo flung one of Izaya's arms around his neck and then used his own to wrap it around the man's waist. Slowly, they made their way outside and then Shizuo helped him get into the car. He then got in as well and asked the same driver who had brought them there to head for Shinjuku. It looked like Izaya was struggling to stay awake if the fluttering eyelids were any indication, and the more Shizuo looked at him, the harder it became to hold in his tears as he thought of how horrible he'd treated Izaya that night. Time flew and yet he continued to stare, unable to look away no matter how much he wanted to.

"We're here," the driver eventually announced, and it took Shizuo some time to find his voice and thank the man.

Without another word, he helped an tired-looking flea out of the car, into the building and then inside the elevator, all the while Izaya staring at him as though he was trying to figure out who he was looking at, as though the man helping him walk was a stranger.

"Let go," Izaya said with a frown as he pushed Shizuo away.

"I can't do that. If I let you go, you're going to fall."

"Let me fall," Izaya said and pushed at Shizuo's chest harder. "Legs hurt."

"Stop struggling," Shizuo advised with a sigh, the sound followed by that of the elevator doors opening. Shizuo moved to walk out, but it looked like Izaya had gone completely limp in his hold. "Fine, have it your way," he hissed as he took Izaya into his arms, the small squeak of surprise not deterring him from making sure the flea was safe so that he could get the hell out of there. "You smell like a distillery," Shizuo remarked with his nose scrunched up in disgust.

Izaya chuckled. "I neeeeded... a drink."

"Yeah, one maybe, but not ten," Shizuo said as she shook his head in disapproval. "Where are your keys?"

"Pocket," Izaya said and tried to take the keys out with what Shizuo knew must feel like fingers made out of cotton.

When Izaya failed, Shizuo put him down but kept a firm arm around the flea's waist. By then, Izaya had somehow managed to fish out the keys, but before Shizuo could take them, they slipped from his fingers and hit the floor. Sighing, Shizuo pushed Izaya into the wall and kept him there with a hand while he bent down to pick up the keys. No words were exchanged after that, at least not until Shizuo carried Izaya up the stairs and opened the bedroom door.

"No light," Izaya requested and Shizuo complied, thinking that it was because of the too much alcohol the flea had consumed. With some work, he took Izaya's coat off and then placed him gently on the bed before he sat down as well, lacking the energy to keep standing for much longer with how stressed he'd been at the thought that Izaya had sensed his jealousy.

"I just need a minute and then I'll lea―," Shizuo said just in case Izaya was not totally lost in an alcoholic haze, but before he could even finish the sentence, he found himself swallowing nervously when Izaya moaned, the flea suddenly looking rather agitated.

"H-Hot," Izaya gasped as he clawed at his throat.

Shizuo's eyes widened and for a second he froze, terrified of further touching the flea, but in the end he reached quivering hands and started working on loosening the tie. Izaya struggled at first, but then relaxed and allowed him to get rid of the offending clothing article. Once done, Shizuo debated whether to unbutton the flea's shirt too, finally deciding to just do it quickly when Izaya grunted in pain and started pulling at the black material. After taking a deep breath, Shizuo unbuttoned the shirt and then pulled his hands back as though he'd been burned when one of his fingers had accidentally come in contact with Izaya's skin.

He tried to get up, but a hand holding surprising strength wrapped itself around his wrist and pulled him back down.

"You know that I... know."

As he figured the meaning behind Izaya's words, Shizuo suddenly felt extremely claustrophobic. He tried to get up again, but Izaya wasn't letting go of his wrist. His already racing heart picked up speed and he felt his pulse ring inside his ears, and yet through all of that, he was still able to hear Izaya's next words.

"How about a good night kiss?" Izaya challenged.

It was dark inside the room, but Shizuo could still see Izaya's face with the little light coming in from the city outside and he was shocked to see that the flea looked surprisingly calm even after such an insane request. The fact that Izaya knew was mortifying, but the flea's words had been insulting enough to make him sneer because no matter how much of a monster he was, he would never take advantage of someone intoxicated. Still, he knew that reasoning with a drunken person was impossible, so in the end he decided to just show him how much he’d changed. That aside, he got the impression that refusing would be an admission of guilt, and he wanted to leave Izaya guessing for as long as he could because uncertainty and doubt was always better than knowing something for a fact.

Using his superior strength, he freed his wrist and then leaned in for a kiss. Izaya's eyes widened, not exactly terrified but more like surprised that Shizuo was heeding his request. They were so close that they could feel each other's breaths, and even though Izaya smelled like a drunkard, Shizuo couldn't deny the hunger he felt deep within and how tempted he was to kiss those lips. He just stood there for a long time, staring into Izaya's eyes until finally he found the strength to do what he'd set out to do. Instead of kissing Izaya's lips, he kissed the flea on the forehead, the gesture earning him a sound of surprise. He then pulled back, sighing. "I'll watch over you until you fall asleep," he promised and ran a hand through silky black locks. Izaya wasn't saying anything, which made Shizuo worry, but the flea eventually closed his eyes, having lost the battle against exhaustion. Shizuo waited for a bit longer after that, wanting to make sure that Izaya was truly asleep before he left, but he made the mistake of reclining against the headboard and sleep overtook him as well.

Beside him, a pair of brown-red orbs opened and the hand hidden beneath one of the pillows finally eased its white-knuckled grip on a switchblade. Izaya took a shuddering breath and thanked the Heavens or whatever else might be out there that he hadn't been forced to spill the beast's blood all over his bed.

Chapter 113: Release Me

Notes:

I know I'm a bit late with this chapter, but this one and the previous one put together are the length of three regular chapters so in the end I guess I'm not really late? Either way, I'm sorry for taking so long to update. ^^;

The first rays of the sun caught Izaya sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, bloodshot eyes glued to Shizuo’s sleeping form. Izaya had crawled out of the bed soon after Shizuo fell asleep, unable to spend an entire night so close to the one who had viciously taken his body by force and then left him to bleed in a dirty alley as though he was garbage. Things had certainly changed between them, but what had happened that night was unforgivable and Izaya was still trying to decide how he felt knowing that Shizuo had probably always wanted him.

The thought was terrifying, that much he knew, and if he'd known it for certain right after it happened, he would've killed the beast right away instead of playing all those mind games, but since then he'd had the opportunity to know another side of Shizuo, the human side, and Izaya no longer felt the need to kill him; most of the time anyway. His fingers went to his forehead and he cringed at the memory of the beast kissing it because no matter how much progress he'd done, he would never be able to think of Shizuo touching him as anything but disgusting. The beast had engraved that pain and humiliation into every fiber of his being and that wasn't something that would ever go away.

He was still deep in thought when Shizuo opened his eyes, startling Izaya who wasn't expecting the blond to wake up so abruptly. They stared into each other's eyes for what felt like forever, until Shizuo jumped to his feet, his mind now clear enough to recall what had happened the night before. The need to get the hell out of there was overriding everything else and Shizuo rushed to the door and pressed the handle, a small sound of surprise leaving him when a switchblade flew right past his ear and embedded itself into the door.

"Really?" Izaya asked, his tone one of disbelief. "You're going to run away instead of owning up to it?"

"I can't talk about that right now," Shizuo said and walked out of the room, leaving Izaya to frown, brown-red eyes now glued to the switchblade still embedded into the door.

"You won't be able to run away forever," Izaya said, even though Shizuo was no longer there, and stood up. He then made his way to the door, pulled the knife out and went downstairs to lock the door. Yuigadokusonmaru yawned from the couch, reminding Izaya that he was supposed to feed Kasuka's cat before it started meowing for food. Groaning, he stepped into the kitchen, some of his stiffer joints popping with the movement.

"Here," he then said as he opened a can of food and dumped it into the bowl. "You eat this while I go take a bath." He gave the cat a small pat on the head and went back upstairs where he took out his contact lenses and got some clothes out of the closet before making his way to the bathroom.

Once inside, he set the water to run at a temperature he liked and then started taking off his clothes, scrunching his nose in disgust with how much everything smelled of alcohol. He'd drank a bit the night before, enough to gather the courage to go through with his plan, but that wouldn't have been enough to convince Shizuo that he was drunk, hence why he'd had no choice but to splash some alcohol on himself and on his clothes.

Sighing, he stepped into the bathtub and sat down, enjoying the feeling of the hot water on his body. He then closed his eyes and tried to relax, but he ended up falling asleep and then waking up suddenly some time later, gasping for breath as he tried to get rid of that awful feeling the nightmare had left him with.

He'd dreamed he was lying in that same tub and that the water was quickly turning red with his own blood. It reminded him just how close he'd been to dying that night and it made him even angrier at that fact that Shizuo had ran away instead of giving him the accursed answer which had become pretty obvious after the previous night's events.

Laughing bitterly, he started washing his body, all the while trying his hardest to distract his mind with anything that wasn't the memory of almost bleeding to death in that very own bathtub. The feeling of his on life slipping away had been terrifying and Izaya hoped to never feel that way again. And since being in that bathtub was making him uncomfortable and the water was starting to get cold, he did his best to wash himself faster. He rinsed his hair quickly and then stepped out of the tub, feeling at least a bit better because he no longer smelled like he'd drank himself into a coma. He briefly considered changing the bathtub, but quickly dismissed the thought as being foolish; it'd been a long time since the night he'd almost died in it.

Still, it made sense that he would feel a bit agitated after the game he'd played the night before and how much he'd risked in his pursuit of the truth. Things could've gone very wrong and maybe that's why he’d dreamed that he would end up in that bathtub again, feeling his life slip away as he bled to death. In reality, Shizuo had acted like a gentleman the entire night, reaffirming Izaya's belief that the beast had truly changed for the better. Forgiving him was out of the question, but Izaya was very much aware that he'd become weary of the mind games some time ago. Sighing, he sat on the couch, the cat immediately running up to him and jumping in his lap.

He had an idea of how to achieve his goal of getting the truth out of Shizuo, but he didn't think he was ready to take that step yet, not to mention that just thinking about it made him sick to his stomach. "I'm such a coward," he told Yuigadokusonmaru who was purring in his arms.

He was about to go on a rant about it, but he was interrupted by a sound coming from his phone, indicating that he'd received a message. He reached for the phone, careful not to disturb the cat too much, and his face lit up a bit at the prospect of having dinner with Kasuka. Spending an hour or two with Shizuo's brother was just what he needed. Besides, there were a few questions he wanted to ask Kasuka and the dinner seemed like the perfect time to do it, unless, of course, Ruri was there, in which case it meant that he would have to postpone his inquiry for a later date.

The more he thought about it though, the more he realized that Kasuka might not be too happy about answering his questions, so Izaya spent that entire morning and then most of the afternoon trying to think of the best way to breach the subject. Kasuka was feeling extremely guilty about betraying them and Izaya knew that he had to make it look like it was just a regular conversation instead of an interrogation.

It was late in the afternoon when Izaya got dressed and made his way to Kasuka's place even though he knew that he would get there far too early, but he no longer had any patience left and he hoped that in case Ruri got home just before dinner, then he would have some time alone with Kasuka before that so that he could ask his questions.

As expected, Kasuka appeared just a little bit surprised to see him arrive so early, but what seemed to truly catch Kasuka's attention were the contact lenses. Izaya smirked. "You like it, huh?"

Kasuka nodded and Izaya couldn't help but laugh a bit as he blinked seductively. "The ladies won't be able to resist my charm now."

[I'm sure the ladies loved you just as much even with the eyepatch.]

Izaya giggled a bit and then stepped inside.

[I haven't even started the food yet,] Kasuka let him know.

Izaya shrugged. "I was bored. Besides, I'm not hungry yet anyway." He then sat on the couch and did his best to look just a little bit sad. "You know, I almost brought Doku-chan here with me today."

Kasuka sat down as well.

"I love the little guy, but I can't always take care of him properly," Izaya revealed, and even though he used Yuigadokusonmaru as a conversation starter for what he really wanted to talk about, his words had been true nonetheless.

[He looked fine the last few times I saw him,] Kasuka said in the hope of getting that sad expression off Izaya's face. It was almost scary how much he didn't want to see Izaya sad even though the man had done some terrible things to him in the past. He'd forgiven him a long time ago though, especially after the hell he'd suffered at both Slon and Adabashi's hands and realized that when put through extreme situations, most people would break and eventually betray anyone as long as it meant the pain would stop, or that they would seek revenge at any cost just to ease the agony they felt. What had broken him was the fact that Adabashi had threatened to hurt Ruri, but it still didn't change the fact that he had been very close to telling the man anything just to get him to stop inflicting pain.

"I still believe that he'd be better off with you," Izaya said, head lowered as he tried to look as dejected as possible. "I've never had pets before, not even when I was a kid."

[You are taking good care of him, I can tell,] Kasuka assured him. [I've never had pets before either.]

Izaya raised his head but kept the sad expression on his face. It was time to segue the discussion in a direction that led to the two of them talking about Shizuo. "Your parents didn't let you have pets?"

[I don't think my parents would've minded, but they chose against us getting a pet because they didn't want to risk it getting injured during one of my brother's rage episodes.]

"I see," Izaya said, looking thoughtful. "It makes sense. No matter how much of a brute Shizu-chan is, I think he would've been crushed if he'd ever accidentally hurt a cat or a dog." Kasuka nodded, but Izaya wasn't done. After all, they were just getting started and Izaya hoped to pry as much information as possible out of the younger Heiwajima. "He was very eager to crush insects though, but even then he seemed to regret it afterwards. He's quite foolish, isn't he?" Kasuka nodded, but Izaya could tell that the man was uncomfortable since they were obviously talking about that fateful night and how Shizuo had seen him as nothing more than an insect that needed to be crushed. "I think that he didn't even fully realize that I was human until he was done and his anger had receded."

Kasuka lowered his head in shame. He might not have been the one to hurt Izaya but he still felt somewhat responsible for what had happened to the man. If he hadn't sent the note that night, if he'd talked more as a kid instead of frustrating Shizuo with his silence, if― No, there was no point in thinking like that; the past was unchangeable.

"It's not your fault," Izaya said, sensing that that the man was blaming himself.

[I know,] Kasuka replied even though he didn't really believe it.

"You're not to blame for this unhealthy obsession we have for one another."

Kasuka's head snapped up, surprised to hear Izaya admitting it.

"I wanted the two of us to be friends, you know?" Izaya said and then continued, hoping that by revealing some things, he would get Kasuka to do the same. "Unfortunately, your brother decided from the moment he saw me that he didn't like me and then attacked me without any sort of provocation."

[I'm sorry,] Kasuka quickly typed, feeling extremely embarrassed over his brother's behavior.

"Like I said, not your fault," Izaya reminded him. "Anyway, I was a bit hurt by the whole thing, as well as angry enough to try to want to get revenge in some way. Things simply escaladed from there," Izaya admitted with a shrug.

[My brother was very rude. As his family, I apologize for his behavior on your first meeting.]

"It doesn't matter anymore," Izaya said with a soft sigh. "As annoying as it was, I can't deny that I had some fun tormenting Shizu-chan."

[I wouldn't call it fun but sure, if that's what you want to go with...]

Izaya laughed. "It really was innocent fun at first."

[I wish it had stayed that way.]

"Me too," Izaya replied in a sad voice, no longer laughing. "I never suspected he could ever go that far or that he wanted me. His obsession must run deep."

[I did, since long ago,] Kasuka revealed. [I actually confronted him about it back when you tormented him with what happened to me while growing up.]

Izaya couldn't help but chuckle. "That was fun."

Kasuka almost rolled his eyes. [You do know that I told you about it on purpose, right?]

"I never really gave it much thought," Izaya admitted. "I was simply glad that I had something more I could torment him with. Still, I must say I'm impressed. Well played!" The corners of Kasuka's mouth went up just a tiny bit and Izaya had to admit to himself yet again that trying to get closer to Shizuo's brother had been one of the best ideas he'd ever had. "Anyway, you said you confronted Shizu-chan about it. What happened afterwards?"

[He turned rather violent. He didn't like what I was implying.]

"Violent how?" Izaya asked, trying to hide his interest behind a mask of worry.

[I mean more than usual. The first time, he only grabbed me by the T-shirt and glared at me, but the second time it went further than that. He doesn't usually touch me, but my comment must've made him really angry because he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me into the wall. He let go once he realized what he'd done, but he still grabbed me by the hair afterwards and continued trying to convince me that he would never hurt someone he liked and that everything he'd done to you was out of anger and hatred.]

Izaya snorted and shook his head in disbelief. "And you believed him?"

[I guess I did. He seemed to believe it himself.]

Izaya was about to ask another question, but Kasuka's expression suddenly morphed into one of shock, the younger Heiwajima most likely finally realizing that he'd said too much. Izaya immediately grabbed his hands, hoping to calm him down. "You haven't told me anything I didn't already know," he tried to reassure him, but he could tell that Kasuka was very close to panicking. "How do you think I managed to almost kill him the day he ended up in a coma?" Kasuka still looked agitated, as though he couldn't breathe that well, so Izaya continued. "I used his feelings towards me, or at least the feelings I thought he had, to get him to drop his guard. I pretended to have been in love with him since high school, and the fool ate it right up. I could tell just how much he wanted it to be true, but it wasn't, it was just a lie." Kasuka appeared to be looking a bit better, or at least not as terrified at having messed up as before. Unfortunately, anger seemed to be replacing the terror.

[Was it really a lie though?] Kasuka typed after snatching his hands from Izaya's hold.

"Yes," Izaya replied, somehow feeling insulted by the question. "And even if that was the case, what your brother did would've killed any foolish feelings I might've had for him." Kasuka gave him a skeptical look, which annoyed Izaya, but fighting with Kasuka was not something he wanted to do at that moment so he decided to simply change the subject. "The only thing I didn't know was that Shizuo would actually hurt you."

[I clearly remember you stating how sure you were about the fact that my brother hurt me and that I was afraid of him,] Kasuka typed and showed it to Izaya, still feeling slightly irritated.

"I was angry," was Izaya's simple answer. "I―" He never got to continue though, a knock on the door making both of them jump a bit in surprise. To top it all off, Kasuka looked like a deer caught in the headlights and it still amazed Izaya how much easier it had become to read the man even when he was trying so hard to look emotionless. Izaya knew that wasn't the case. He'd seen Kasuka break down and even if the actor might one day be able to fool everyone again, he could never again fool him. Heiwajima Kasuka was just as human as the rest of them. Still, Izaya pushed that thought aside and waited curiously to find out who was at the door, only to swallow nervously when he heard Shizuo's voice, the man grunting his greetings before walking in.

Izaya inwardly cringed at the awkward situation, not because he was desperate to avoid Shizuo, on the contrary, he wanted to talk to him, but because they were in Kasuka's presence and judging by Shizuo's panicked looked, neither of them wanted to further upset the man with their problems. To top it all off, Izaya was even more worried that Kasuka might break under the pressure and end up telling Shizuo that they'd been talking about him. Shit. It looked like it was time to play the role of the nice guest. "Looks like Shizu-chan is here for dinner as well," Izaya chirped as he patted a spot on the couch, indicating that he expected the man to sit down next to him.

Shizuo simply stared, his eyes wild as he desperately tried to come up with an excuse to get the hell out of there. Kasuka had invited him to dinner and he had accepted, if only to forget for a few moments that Izaya knew. That fucking louse knew and the need to crawl into a dark deep hole and never come out grew stronger the longer Izaya stared at him, with that all-knowing look and a smirk that was somehow also a sneer.

"Sit down, Shizu-chan," Izaya ordered.

This time, Shizuo did as the flea told him, not because he wanted to be there but because Izaya's eyes looked fucking terrifying, almost as terrifying as that time when he'd beaten him to a bloody pulp and knocked a tooth out of his mouth and loosened another.

"I didn't know you've invited your brother for dinner as well," Izaya addressed Kasuka with a forced smile, left eye slightly twitching.

With a bit of effort, Kasuka managed to take the few steps it took to reach the armchair and sat down, swallowing nervously after noticing the way in which the two arch enemies had looked at each other earlier. It was probably the worst moment to talk about it, but he still took a deep breath, putting all the courage he could muster into getting his mouth to move.

"I've invited both of you here today because I wanted to thank you for all that you've done for me," Kasuka finally said, his voice sounding monotone enough to surprise even himself.

Both Shizuo and Izaya stared in shock for a long time, until finally they came back to their senses. Izaya was the first one to react.

"I knew you could do it," Izaya praised him, his anger towards Shizuo momentarily forgotten.

Unlike Izaya, Shizuo stood up and moved to give his brother a hug, all the while blinking rapidly to chase away the tears starting to gather in his eyes. "No," Shizuo whispered into Kasuka's ear. "Thank you for being so strong."

"Thank you for not giving up trying to find me; both of you." Afterwards, Kasuka explained to them how his conversation with Fujita Shizuka had helped him and then they talked about all sorts of things that weren't related to any of the bad stuff they've all been through. At that moment, Shizuo and Izaya knew that getting Kasuka to keep talking was more important than their conflict, so they put that aside for the moment and simply did their best to help the one person between the three of them who truly didn't deserve all the pain and suffering he'd had to endure.

Izaya still didn't believe he deserved what Shizuo had done to him, but even he was aware that he'd hurt people or that people had ended up getting hurt because of him, and while he couldn't say that he wouldn't do it again, he still had some regrets, like failing to save Ayato or getting Kasuka involved, thus being the one who was probably responsible for everything that had happened to the man.

Dinner was quickly forgotten, neither remembering the reason why they were there in the first place until they heard the lock turning and Kasuka pled with his guests to not tell Ruri anything because he wanted to be the one to tell her himself. He then quickly apologized and sent them on their way, grateful to the two men for trying their best to avoid conflict for his sake. He waited a few minutes with his ear glued to the door just in case his brother and Izaya might get into a fight the second they were out the door, but all seemed quiet, so he breathed in relief and slowly made his way inside, his heart hammering inside his chest as he approached the love of his life from behind and took her in his arms.

"I love you," he whispered into her ear, pouring all of his feelings into those few words. He felt her shiver in his embrace and then she was turning around, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a desperate kiss.

"I love you too," she whispered breathlessly as they pulled apart only so that he could maneuver them to the couch.

Their kisses quickly turned heated and soon Kasuka's shirt was on the floor and he had a hand beneath her blouse, lost in a haze of desire he almost succumbed to. Luckily, he managed to come back to his senses and pulled away, trying to catch his breath. "We need to talk," he said as he ran a twitchy hand through his hair.

As much as she wanted him that very moment, Ruri could tell that whatever he wanted to say was important, so she pushed herself to a sitting position and listened intently.

Kasuka took a deep breath and then met her eyes. "I know that I haven't been the best boyfriend lately and that you were forced to take care of a broken―"

"No one forced me to do anything," Ruri interrupted him. "I'm here for you because I want to."

"Still..."

"You're the one," Ruri stated as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "No matter what happens, you're mine and I'm never letting you go."

Ruri's words were everything he'd wanted to hear and he sunk his nails into his arm, trying to reign in the intense desire he felt at that moment for the woman sitting next to him. There were still a few things he needed to tell her though, to give her the chance to leave if she so wished. He loved her and that was exactly why he wanted her to be happy, even if that meant she would be happy with someone else.

"I'm still pretty messed up," he revealed, fingers twitching with the need to pull her into his arms and kiss her. "I don't know if I'll ever be alright. I did my best to remain sane first with Slon and then with Adabashi, but all that pain and the mind games and Adabashi's threats to hurt you eventually got to me and I told him everything he wanted to hear."

Ruri barely stopped herself from leaning forward and pulling him into a hug since it looked like he badly needed to talk. "You did it to protect me," she said instead, hoping that her words would be a comfort.

"And doing so, I betrayed my brother and Izaya. I feel terrible, but even so, I would do it all over again," he then said as he placed his hand on top of her much smaller one. "You're the most important person in my life and I would do anything to keep you safe."

"I feel the same way," Ruri said. "Do you think I'd let you go, someone for whom I've killed?"

Kasuka lowered his head in shame. "I don't know if I even have a future anymore. Who would even hire me when my body looks like this?"

Ruri raised her free hand and gently traced one of the scars left by Adabashi on her beloved Yuuhei's chest. "Plenty of people," Ruri said calmly just as she grabbed him by the chin and tipped his head so that she could look into his eyes. "I even know someone who would love to have you in their next movie, scars and all."

Kasuka could do nothing but blink in surprise since he thought that he was done for when it came to acting because of the number Adabashi had done on him, so to hear that maybe he still had a future was enough to give him hope, hope that was soon crushed when he realized that filming a movie meant talking to people, people who would ask questions he didn't want to answer; couldn't answer. Just because he could keep his composure in the safety of his home, it didn't mean that he might not have a breakdown if he got hounded by reporters. The thought alone made him nervous and he realized that he was having a difficult time breathing when Ruri pulled him into her arms and told him to calm down.

"Everything is going to be okay. You're going to be okay," she promised and kept running her fingers through his hair.

"We're going to be okay," he repeated, mostly to convince himself of that fact. The gentle fingers then disappeared from his hair and he found himself being pushed on his back with Ruri getting on top of him.

"Now stop thinking about anything else and pay attention to me," Ruri ordered before she captured his lips in a heated kiss.

Kasuka's arms wrapped around her and he couldn't help but think that he was the luckiest man in the world for having met her.

Thank you for not leaving me, he thought right before he got lost in the passion and all rational thoughts left his mind.

***

Shizuo was close to panicking. He knew it and he knew that Izaya knew it judging by the disturbing smile the other would throw his way once in a while to make sure that he was still following. He remembered this area and where Izaya was heading, and even though he wanted nothing more than to run away, he kept on walking, like a puppet being pulled by its strings.

Izaya's promise of never talking again about that night and putting the past behind them if they could talk honestly to one another for once in their lives had come out of nowhere and it was something that Shizuo couldn't refuse, especially when he could tell just how badly Izaya needed it. Shizuo didn't want to talk about it and he most certainly wasn't ready to do it yet, neither was Izaya, judging by the pain and fear which seemed to envelop the man the closer they got to that place, but the truth was that Shizuo himself had a question for Izaya and he needed to desperately know the answer. If it was true that Izaya had truly been in love with him since high school then...

Shizuo's muscled seized and he stopped in his tracks, struggling to breath. Izaya stopped as well, using Shizuo's obvious panic as an excuse to gather himself since he appeared to be losing his courage.

"Can we just... go someplace else?" Shizuo begged as he used the nearby wall for support.

"Your cowardice disgusts me," Izaya hissed through greeted teeth and used the small respite to calm his racing heart. He was starting to regret leading Shizuo in the direction of that dirty alley where he'd been shown just how much he could break because he too dreaded going anywhere near it, but for some reason, he knew it was the only place that might just push Shizuo to finally give him the answer he so desperately needed to hear in order to move on with his life. He felt that as long as Shizuo kept the real reason behind that night's attack hidden, then Izaya would spend every day of his life wondering 'why me,' because he could never be sure of the answer until Shizuo said it himself. He needed to hear Shizuo say it as much as he needed air. Without it, he would fall back into the familiar deep dark abyss of spite and hatred that was still very much bubbling just beneath the surface and that sometimes made him imagine just how satisfying it'd be to sink his switchblade into Shizuo's flesh, over and over and over again, until the beast was obliterated once and for all.

Beside him, Shizuo's eyes narrowed into slits, as though he couldn't believe that Izaya was seriously going to go through with it.

"And your stupid bravado amazes me," Shizuo bit back as he moved away from the wall. He then started walking away, suddenly too angry to be afraid anymore because Izaya was an idiot and Shizuo realized that the flea would never stop being one, so might as well just get it over with.

Izaya blinked in surprise then followed after Shizuo, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he'd managed to convince the beast to give him the answer. He'd never planned to go this far that day, nor to go to that accursed place, but once he'd seen Shizuo walk away as they got out of the apartment building, Izaya had a feeling that if he couldn't convince Shizuo to explain himself that very night, then he might never be able to do it. In the end, his proposition had been simple.

A secret for a secret.

It was something that Izaya hadn't even been able to tell Yuigadokusonmaru, but he was willing to reveal it to Shizuo if it meant getting the beast to admit that he had feelings for him. Izaya was certain that such an admission would crush Shizuo further, and even though that wasn't his intention, at least not the main reason why he was doing it in the first place, he couldn't deny that he reveled in the idea of how much more it would break Heiwajima Shizuo to admit that he'd utterly destroyed the one he'd always wanted to be with.

That aside, he had to admit that he was surprised to see Shizuo taking charge and actually leading instead of looking like he might be sick at any moment. Shizuo still didn't look alright, but Izaya could now tell that Shizuo had made up his mind and that finally, after so long, Izaya would get his answer.

The closer they got to that place, the fewer people they could see around them, and soon enough they were alone, the sounds of their footsteps ringing in their ears, along with the heaving breathing both of them couldn't quite hide because of how nervous they were.

And then they were there, each struggling with unwanted memories as they stopped right outside that place of nightmare.

"Did you think when you woke up this morning that you'd end up here today?" Izaya asked, trying to sound amused but not quite succeeding.

"No, I was too busy panicking over the fact that I'd fallen asleep in your bed."

Izaya gave him a look that pretty much meant he knew that Shizuo wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Amongst other things," Shizuo finally said, cringing a bit at the admission. He guessed that the first step was always the hardest and so he ignored the nausea and raw fear of what he knew was coming and stepped into the alley, his already wildly beating heart almost bursting out of his chest with each further step he took until he was at the end of the closed-off alley where he could almost see the trapped flea, a dark memory that he would never be able to wrench out of his brain.

The real Orihara Izaya was still outside though, struggling to get air into his lungs as he fought with the dread of knowing that in there, he'd been reduced to a shadow of his former self, that in there, his life had changed. Inside that alley, he'd learned that he too was just another human that could easily break.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he heard Shizuo's voice and Izaya flinched, the words pulling him out of a memory of him clinging to those bars outside a window for dear life as he struggled to stand up.

"We don't need to have this conversation here. I'll tell you what you want no matter where we go," Shizuo promised, not failing to notice that Izaya had started to tremble, brown-red eyes wide and looking as though he was drowning in a sea of dark memories.

"I... I just need a moment," Izaya uttered in a trembling voice and then spent the next minute or so trying to find the courage to go in. It's fine. You can do this, Izaya told himself, and before he could change his mind and get the hell out of there, he took that first step and then another and a few more until he was standing so close to Shizuo that the beast could easily grab him. If that happened, Izaya knew he stood no chance of getting out of there in one piece, but Shizuo's eyes, filled with regret, grounded him into a present where Heiwajima Shizuo wouldn't repeat the events of that night.

Shizuo could do nothing but watch as Izaya fought the fear he surely felt at the sight of that accursed place. Shizuo was battling demons of his own, but it was clear that he was doing far better than the trembling flea whose pained eyes were now glued to his face.

"I know it doesn't mean much coming from me, but you're safe. You know that, right?" He waited for Izaya to nod, but when he received none, he continued. "I've changed, Izaya. I'm not the same person anymore. I'd rather die than hurt you that way again. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I'd probably still punch you in the face if I really thought you deserved it, but I wouldn't humiliate you the way I did that night."

The silence stretched for quite some time, but Izaya knew that he had to say something, least he wanted for the two of them to continue staring at one another forever. Slowly, he wet his dry lips and forced his mouth to move, his voice sounding quite pathetic even to his own ears. "I know."

Shizuo, trying to look as non-threatening, nodded and spoke, sounding a lot calmer than Izaya even though he was probably just as nervous. "Ask your question."

Izaya swallowed nervously. "Do you know the answer now?"

"Yeah, I think so," Shizuo said, cringing a bit because just thinking about saying those words was something he wished he would never have to do.

"And you're going to tell me the truth?" Izaya asked, almost in disbelief since he never thought that Shizuo would actually have the guts to say it.

"I'm not going to lie. It's like you said, you deserve to know the truth. It's the least I can do after all the pain and―"

Something shiny glinted in the moonlight and Shizuo reacted on instinct, grabbing Izaya in an attempt to protect him from whatever it was that he perceived as a danger. There was a loud bang and almost at the same time pain exploded on the right side of his head. The world started to tilt and everything went black before he even hit the ground. The last thought going through his head before he slipped into darkness was that if someone hurt Izaya, he would kill them.

Chapter 114: Night of the Hunter

Izaya could do nothing but watch as Shizuo fell, his whole body frozen from the moment Shizuo had grabbed him out of nowhere, thus making his panic skyrocket at the unexpected action. An angry roar followed the thud Shizuo's body made when it hit the ground and that's when Izaya finally tore his eyes from the fallen beast and raised his head, brown-red eyes widening even further at the sight of a murderous-looking Kuro.

"Nonononono!" Kuro kept repeating as he walked into the alley, barely stopping himself from putting a bullet into Izaya's head right then and there. "This wasn't supposed to happen!" he roared angrily as he pointed the gun at Izaya. "This is your fault! Everything is your fault!"

Pushing past the panic that had seized him, Izaya managed to raise his hands and move further into the alley until his back hit the wall behind him and he could go no further. "You should be dead," he uttered brokenly as a feeling of hopelessness overtook him.

"Yeah, well, I'm not, now give me your phone! Slowly! If you make any sudden move, I'll put a bullet in your head," Kuro warned. "And your switchblade. Put your phone and all of the weapons you have on you down. Now!!" he then roared.

Izaya was panicking so badly that he could barely do what he'd been told to do. His hands were shaking and he was afraid that the man might shoot him at any moment and that he'd die in that accursed alley next to Shizuo of all people. Then again, Shizuo couldn't be dead, right? Ikebukuro's strongest couldn't have died so pathetically, without even a chance to defend himself. "S-Shizu-chan," he uttered in a trembling voice as he lowered himself to a crouching position. "Shizu-chan, wake up." He could feel the beginning of tears starting to gather in his eyes and he kept telling himself that it was because he couldn't accept the fact that Shizuo had died before giving him the answer.

"If you don't give me your phone and weapons then so help me―"

"Shut up! You... you killed him!" Izaya hissed as he reached for Shizuo's head to inspect the wound, his stomach twisting the moment he felt how warm the blood was beneath his fingers.

"Back off! Back the hell off!" Kuro shouted in anger and kicked Izaya away from Shizuo. He then crouched down to check the pulse. A sigh of relief escaped him. "He's still alive. Like I said, give me your fucking phone already so that I can call for an ambulance!"

Izaya's heart skipped a beat at the news and he pulled out his phone and handed it to Kuro who still had the gun aimed at his head. It was strange to even admit it, but he was glad that Shizuo might at least have a chance at being saved. He knew however that he was fucked and that Kuro was going to, as the man had said, fuck him up, which almost made Izaya consider the fact that taking a bullet to the head might be the better option. As much as he dreaded death, he feared being at Kuro's mercy a lot more. He had no doubt that Kuro would make good on his promise, and given what he knew about the man's activities, Izaya had an idea of what to expect.

I can't go through that again, he thought with a shudder, so terrified by what would happen to him that he couldn't even pay attention to what Kuro was saying while the man was talking on the phone. It was only when he felt pain explode on the left side of his head that he was pulled out his own mind and rooted back into the reality of the nightmare he was stuck in. Blood trickled down his face and that's when he realized that Kuro had just hit him in the head with the gun.

"Stop spacing out, you piece of shit! I said, put down the switchblade! I'm not going to tell you again!" Kuro growled as he kept his eyes glued to Izaya. He knew just how dangerous the man was and he didn't want to risk getting attacked and maybe killed by this asshole he couldn't wait to destroy for having dared fuck with him.

As much as Izaya wanted to fight, he concluded that between a bullet and a switchblade, the bullet would most likely be faster, so he reluctantly pulled out his switchblade and placed it down on the ground and then stepped back, wondering how things could've gone so wrong. "How did you escape?" he couldn't help but hiss the question even as he felt his entire body trembled in fear at what he knew awaited him at Kuro's hands.

"Take off your jacket," Kuro ordered. "I won't risk you having any hidden blades in there. Also turn the pockets of your pants inside out."

Izaya cursed under his breath once again and placed the jacket over the still unconscious Shizuo before slowly taking out his keys and then showing Kuro that he had nothing left in there.

"You won't be needing those keys," Kuro said and then waited for Izaya to drop them before he gestured to the man to start walking. "That asshole went home to get some sleep. He was tired after torturing my friends for days and then killing them. I guess he needed a break before he started on me," Kuro growled in anger as he recalled what Sato Jinpachi had done to his men. "It was easy to overpower one of those Awakusu idiots left to watch me, take the key and get the hell out of there."

"It looks to me like he started on you as well before he went home," Izaya said since Kuro's face looked like the man had been in a boxing match.

Kuro laughed, but he wasn't amused at all. "You should check your phone more often," Kuro said with a chuckle as he pocketed the phone. "You had like fifty missed calls from the Awakusu."

Izaya now knew that he shouldn't have put his phone on silent, but he hadn't wanted anyone to disturb him while he was with Kasuka and he couldn't have guessed that Kuro would escape and come after him. "Where are we going?" he asked and hoped against hope that Shizuo would wake up and find him. Holding such hopes might have been foolish, but he refused to think that Shizuo would die, especially before the idiot could give him the answer. And if you really dare die, Shizu-chan, Izaya thought angrily, then I'm going to find a way to bring you back no matter what. He then shook his head, realizing that he should focus on how to survive, at least long enough to find a way to escape. He couldn't put all of his hopes on a half-dead Shizuo who might give his last breath at any moment. "Where are we going?" he asked again.

"Away from here. I suggest you start praying to any deity you might believe in that Shizuo will survive, because if he dies... well, let's just say that I'm going to make you wish you had never been born," Kuro promised. He still couldn't believe that he'd shot Shizuo. His target had been Izaya from the start, and even though he was planning to wait until the Informant was alone, seeing those two in that alley, all alone, like lovers, had pissed him off enough to try to kill Orihara Izaya right then and there. He never could've imagined that Shizuo would willingly put himself in harm's way to save someone like Izaya, the same person who had hired him to either break or kill Ikebukuro's strongest if he couldn't get information out of him.

Now more than ever Kuro was certain that there was something between the two so-called archenemies, and whether or not Shizuo died, Orihara Izaya was still doomed to suffer at his hands. As promised, he was going to fuck him up and he was going to enjoy every minute of it. First however, he had to take Izaya out of Tokyo, which meant that he needed a car. Alone, he could've easily slipped out of the city, but it would be difficult to do the same with someone at gunpoint. Luckily, there were a lot of abandoned buildings around due to danger of collapsing, so he pushed Izaya into one of them, intending to tie him up and then wait there until he could get someone to bring him a car.

"What are you planning to do to me?" Izaya asked when he realized that he was being led into a building. Before Kuro even had a chance to reply, Izaya pretended to lose his footing on the debris inside the hallway and fell down on the floor, using those few seconds Kuro was shouting at him to get the fuck up to grab a small piece of glass and put it inside his mouth, the only place he could use to hide anything after Kuro had forced him to leave his jacket behind and also to keep the pockets of his pants inside out. His heart was beating so wildly that he was worried Kuro might hear it and figure out that he was planning to do something, but the man seemed more interested in mocking him for having fallen down.

"Up the stairs," Kuro commanded and poked Izaya in the back with the muzzle of the gun. "To answer your question, I'll do exactly what I promised to do. I'm going to fuck you up."

Izaya shuddered but said nothing. Talking with that piece of glass in his mouth was too dangerous and he wasn't going to risk losing his only weapon just to insult Kuro. That aside, he was hoping that the bastard might tie him up with either rope or zip ties, because if he used cuffs, then he was beyond fucked. He could always just turn around and try to take the gun out of Kuro's hands, but he had a feeling he'd be dead before he even had a chance to touch the weapon. As expected, Kuro led him into one of the rooms and Izaya had to fight really hard to push down the utter panic threatening to make him do something really stupid, especially when the man kept pushing him towards the wall.

"Raise your hands and kneel," Kuro ordered and then waited for Izaya to do as told before giving the next instructions. "Now put your right hand behind the pipe and bring your wrists together."

Izaya breathed in deeply in an attempt to not freak out and decided that if Kuro had cuffs on him then he was going to take the risk and fight back. Luckily, the man pulled out zip ties and Izaya let out the breath he didn't even knew he was holding. All he had to do now was have patience and wait for the right moment.

"Disgusting," Kuro hissed while tightening the zip ties since he got Izaya's blood on his hands.

"I'm sorry I fell," Izaya hissed between greeted teeth, mostly because talking normally was too difficult with the piece of glass still in his mouth. All he needed now was for Kuro to turn around for a bit so that he could transfer it to one of his hands.

Kuro made sure that Izaya was well tied before taking a step back and pushing the gun into the waistband of his pants. He then reclined against the wall, already contemplating all he ways in which he could torture Orihara Izaya. Still, before he could actually get to that, he needed to get the man out of Tokyo, and he couldn't do that without a car. Sighing, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and walked out to make the call.

As soon as Kuro was far enough to not see him, Izaya spat the piece of glass into his left hand and tried to calm down enough to not drop it and lose his only chance at escape. It was extremely difficult to even hold it with bloody fingers, but still he held on to it as tightly as he could and did his best to cut through the plastic of the zip ties. Unfortunately, Kuro was back before he knew it, and Izaya had no choice but to put on hold trying to escape.

"My friend will be here soon," Kuro said as he approached his captive.

Izaya's hold tightened around the piece of glass. "Great," he replied sarcastically and then felt the air being knocked out of his lungs when Kuro slammed into him. The side of his head hit the wall quite hard and he almost blacked out, but the fear of never escaping and dying at Kuro's hands was enough to keep him rooted into the horrible present which he had to escape.

"I can't help but wonder why you hate me so much," Kuro whispered into his captive's ear as he kept him there, trapped between his body and the wall. "What have I ever done to you besides trying to do the job you hired me to do in the first place?"

"You're scum," Izaya hissed, mostly because he didn't want the other to realize just how terrified he was to be in such a vulnerable position. He hated being trapped and the closeness wasn't helping either since it reminded him too much of Shizuo and how that night he'd also been trapped and unable to escape the horrible events which ended up unfolding.

"You knew what I was when you hired me," Kuro reminded him as he grabbed a handful of black hair and pulled Izaya's head back as far as it could go. He then let his teeth graze the man's throat, enjoying the fact that he could make the great Orihara Izaya tremble like terrified prey. "You knew what I would do to Shizuo if he didn't talk."

Izaya shook his head, or at least as much as he could with Kuro's hand in his hair. "I never... I..."

"Speaking of that," Kuro continued as he ran his free hand down Izaya's body, "did you enjoy the video?"

"S-Stop," Izaya uttered in a terrified voice when Kuro's hand moved beneath his T-shirt.

"Did it turn you on to see Ikebukuro's strongest at my mercy? Don't you wish you had been the one to do those things to Shizuo?" he asked and then ran his hand down Izaya's stomach before resting it on a bony hip. "There were a lot more things I wanted to do to him, but since he's probably dead right now because of you, don't you agree that you should take his place? I must say, you're not really my type, but I'm willing to work with what I got."

Izaya's fear grew exponentially until all he knew was the terror, but the fear didn't explode violently until Kuro's hand slipped into his pants and he felt those cold fingers touch his ass. That's when Izaya started struggling with everything he had, startling Kuro who hadn't been expecting such an extreme reaction. Izaya kept struggling and trying to get away even after Kuro released him, not even realizing that he'd completely lost it until Kuro backhanded him across the face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kuro hissed but kept his distance, not wanting Izaya to injure himself even further. The man's wrists were a mess and Kuro didn't want the idiot to end up bleeding to death before he had a chance to make him pay for having fucked with him.

"D-Don't touch me," Izaya barely managed to say since he still couldn't get enough air into his lungs when all he could feel was terror now that he knew for certain that Kuro was planning to not only fuck him up but also literally fuck him.

"I'll do whatever the hell I want!" Kuro growled as he grabbed Izaya by the hair once again. "If I want to kill you, then I'll kill you, and if I want to fuck you, then― oh!" Kuro released Izaya and took a step back, his fury quickly disappearing and being replaced by disgust and disappointment. "Someone already broke you," he stated it as a fact. He didn't need confirmation after the earlier display. He'd seen that reaction before and now he recognized it for what it truly was. "That's why you hate me so much, because I do to people what someone else did to you. Who was it?" he then asked as he moved closer, his smirk widening when he noticed that the Informant was desperately avoiding meeting his eyes. "I can't imagine there are many people in this city who would dare do something like that to you. Hmm... was it someone from the Awakusu-sai?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya finally managed to hiss as their eyes met.

Kuro ignored him and continued with his speculations. "No, no, it couldn't have been the Awakusu-kai. You're a vengeful little shit, you would've gotten your reven― wait, was it Shizuo?" Kuro found the thought to be extremely entertaining, so he ended up laughing even if it pissed him off that Shizuo had broken Orihara Izaya before he had a chance to do it himself. "He hates your guts and I clearly remember him saying that he thought he deserved what I was going to do to him. I found it to be weird back then, but now it makes perfect sense." He then suddenly released Izaya's hair, took a step back, brought his hands up together in mock prayer and lowered his head. "O Lord, please save Shizuo so that I can destroy that beautiful creature myself." He then lowered his hands and shot Izaya a disgusted look. "I'm feeling really disappointed by you right now. I thought you were strong, but it looks like I was wrong. It won't be nearly as fun torturing a broken and dirty creature like you."

As terrified as he was, Izaya still felt angered enough by the man's words to find the courage to actually spit him in the face even if he knew that Kuro would most likely beat him half to death in retaliation. Truthfully, he didn't mind because it always beat the alternative.

"I can see why Shizuo did it," Kuro said as he ran his fingers through Izaya's spit and then wiped them on the man's lips. Izaya tried to bite them, so Kuro quickly pulled back his hand. "You're so... infuriating."

"Stop projecting your own fucked up actions onto other people. Shizu-chan is nothing like you. He would never do that," Izaya said with as much calm as he could muster even as he felt himself slipping further and further into an ocean of hopelessness and despair.

"No, I'm pretty sure that's what happened," Kuro said, smirk widening. "You forget that I broke many people, and all of them had that same expression you showed me earlier. I don't care if you admit it or not. Your eyes can't lie."

Izaya shrugged and reclined against the wall, trying to look as relaxed as possible. "I don't care what you think," he said, smiling lazily. "You just startled me, that's all. You can't blame me for panicking a bit knowing what I know about you; any man would. Denying that you are dangerous would be foolish, and I'm no fool. I wouldn't have stayed in this business for so long if I was. Speaking of that, it would be in your best interest to let me go. The Awakusu-kai aren't exactly known to be forgiving when it comes to people who hurt their own, and I am one of them, like it or not. You still have a chance to live the rest of your life in peace if you let me go now and leave Tokyo. If you do that, I promise that I will convince the Awakusu-kai to not come after you."

Kuro's hand shot forward and he grabbed Izaya by the throat, squeezing hard. "They killed my friends. I've known them for most of my life, so do you really think that I'll just let it go after what they did to them? No! I'm going to destroy the Awakusu-kai, but first I'm going to finish what Shizuo started since it looks like he didn't completely break you. That's his flaw, I can tell. He's too nice for his own good. Tell me," Kuro whispered as he leaned in, "How did Shizuo do it? Was he as brutal as I hope he was or did he make you enjoy it?"

"Nothi―"

"Shh, don't lie to me, you're only succeeding in making me angry, and you don't want to see me angry before we leave Tokyo."

"Nothing happened," Izaya managed to say even though it felt as though he couldn't breathe with Kuro so close to him.

"I'll make you a deal. You tell me exactly what Shizuo did to you and I won't fuck you in the next five minutes." Sighing, Kuro grabbed Izaya by the nape and turned him around until the man was facing the wall. "I don't like sloppy-seconds, but I'll make an exception since it was Shizuo."

Even as he could feel the beginning of a serious panic attack quickly creeping in, Izaya knew that he had to say something least he wanted Kuro to keep good on his promise. That aside, he needed to finish cutting the zip ties and he couldn't do it with the sick fuck so close to him. "I... I'll tell you everything; just... please just get away. I can't talk with you so close. To be honest, you're making me nervous."

Kuro raised his hands, smiling, and backed away until he was on the opposite side of the room. "Talk," he said as he folded his arms over the chest.

"It was a rainy day and I... I was simply taking a walk. I never saw Shizuo when he threw that vending machine at me. I hurt my head and I couldn't get away. He... he caught me and..." Here he stopped, not only because telling Kuro what happened made him sick to his stomach but because he'd just finished cutting the zip ties and now needed Kuro to move closer to him. "He dragged me into... into and alley and..."

"Go on," Kuro encouraged him, but the other man had gone silent, thus testing his patience. "What did Shizuo do to you in that alley?" Annoyed that he wasn't getting his answers, he stomped towards the Informant and grabbed him by the nape again. "If you don't fucking tell me right now then I'm going to―" An elbow crashed into his face a moment later and he fell to the ground, too stunned to be able to grab Izaya in time before he could escape.

"And then nothing happened, you sick fuck!" Izaya shouted as he ran out of the room and then down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. Too soon another set of footsteps echoed throughout the abandoned building and Izaya's already wildly beating heart started beating even faster.

"Once I catch you, I'm going to have you grovel at my feet for forgiveness!" Kuro roared as he followed Izaya down the stairs.

Izaya didn't reply. He couldn't. All he could do was run as fast as he could and hope that Kuro wouldn't shoot him in the back. A bullet flew past his head just as he thought it and he nearly screamed because he was seriously panicking. Please don't let him catch me, please, please, please, Izaya kept repeating it over and over in his head even if he didn't know exactly to whom he was praying, but then he went around a corner and his mind suddenly went blank when he ended up running straight into Shizuo. His eyes widened in disbelief and he was filled with both joy and relief, for once not panicking when Shizuo grabbed him and pushed him behind him where he would be safe. An unsuspecting Kuro showed up a moment later, the shock of seeing Shizuo up and running giving Ikebukuro's strongest just the time he needed to slam Kuro into the wall and capture the hand holding the gun.

"Shizuo!" Kuro gasped. "I'm so happy you're alive!"

Izaya slid down the wall, his legs unable to hold him up anymore. "You found me," he said in a trembling voice as he blinked away tears of relief.

"I will always find you," Shizuo said as their eyes met. "Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine, but he... he wanted to... to ra―" He never had a chance to finish. A terrifying roar echoed throughout the building and the beast went wild on the prey it had just caught.

"I'm going to kill you! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Shizuo accentuated each promise with a punch to Kuro's body, his angry roars mixing with howls of agony coming from the other man. "No one gets to hurt Izaya! NO ONE!"

No one but you, Shizu-chan, Izaya thought, each sound of bones breaking making him violently flinch and close his eyes even tighter. Izaya knew. He knew it in his heart that the one punishing Kuro was not the human part of Shizuo he'd gotten to know, but the beast he'd met that night, the monster of his nightmare who enjoyed inflicting pain and who wouldn't stop until it was satisfied. Izaya could only hope that the beast's focus wouldn't switch over to him. If he stayed silent then maybe...

Gurgled laughter pulled Izaya out of his own mind and he snapped his head in Kuro's direction, eyes wide when he realized that Kuro was doing the exact same mistake he'd done that night: further pissing off Shizuo instead of trying to placate him.

"I-Izaya is t-trash. You k-know it too. Join me a-and we'll be unstoppable. I... I'll finish b-breaking him f-for you."

"Shut up!" Shizuo growled as he slammed him into the wall again.

"O-Okay, I get it, y-you don't l-like to share. I understand."

"SHUT UP!"

"Forget a-about him. J-Join me. You w-won't have to pretend w-with me. I know w-what you are."

"SHUT.UP."

"You're―"

A moment later a sound reminding Izaya of eggs cracking reached his ears and that's when he realized that Shizuo had just crushed the man's skull. The lifeless body hit the floor with a thud not too long after and it was followed by the sounds of Shizuo retching.

The evidence was right in front of his eyes and yet Izaya still couldn't believe it.

Shizuo had just killed a man.

A shocked gasp slipped past his lips.

After what felt like forever, an extremely pale-looking Shizuo pushed himself away from the wall and raised his head. "Are you okay?" He then wiped his mouth with his sleeve, his eyes widening when he remembered that he was wearing Izaya's jacket. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay," Izaya managed to speak, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm sorry. It's just that... I was so cold," Shizuo said and took a step in Izaya's direction with the intention to help him up, but everything suddenly went dark and he fell down, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Despite how weak his knees still felt, Izaya pushed himself to his feet and rushed to Shizuo's side. "Shizu-chan! Shizu-chan, wake up!" he shouted and placed Shizuo's head in his lap. Luckily, Shizuo was still breathing. "Wake up," he then whispered in a quivering voice, trembling fingers moving away bloody hair to find the wound. From what he could tell, the bullet had grazed Shizuo on the side of the head, which was still bleeding quite a lot but at least he didn't have a bullet moving around in his brain. Still, he had to slow down the bleeding. Without hesitation, he took off his T-shirt, folded it up and pressed it against the side of Shizuo's head. "You're going to be okay," he promised as he reached for the phone in Kuro's pocket. "I'll make sure of it."

Chapter 115: Dwelling in Agony

Notes:

I'm sorry for taking so long to update but I had some health problems and I wasn't feeling well enough to write. To make things worse, I had some computer problems as well and I thought I had lost all of my files, including half of this chapter. I was feeling really depressed about it but luckily I managed to recover everything so all is well now.

Shizuo woke up with a start, struggling to breathe as the memory of crushing Kuro's skull washed over him like a wave of ice-cold water. He could almost hear the sounds the man's skull made as it caved under the pressure of his strength and Shizuo found himself dry-heaving and struggling to get out of bed so that he wouldn't throw up all over himself. The sudden movement made him dizzy and he fell back down, and even though he panicked at first, he soon realized that there was no point in running to the bathroom since his stomach was empty anyway after he'd retched in that abandoned building.

Killing Kuro was terrible in itself, but he'd killed him in front of Izaya of all people, thus making the whole thing that much more horrifying. Just thinking about the flea made him panic all over again because Izaya had seen him kill a person in cold blood, had finally seen that Ikebukuro's strongest truly had no limit when it came to how brutal and savage he could become. There was no way Izaya would want to come anywhere near him after seeing that monster again, the one Shizuo had failed to keep locked deep inside him.

A pathetic whimper slipped past his lips and he curled in on himself, hands covering his ears to try to shut out the sounds of Kuro's skull cracking that he couldn't help but vividly recall. Even so, he could still hear footsteps approaching and he froze, terrified by the thought of actually facing anyone after he'd just killed a man. What if it was the police, coming to take him away so that they could lock him inside a tiny cell where he would most certainly go insane? It wasn't that he didn't think he deserved it for being not only a rapist but also a murderer, but the thought of spending the rest of his life in prison was still enough to almost give him a panic attack. In the end, he decided to pretend to be asleep. He felt ashamed over his cowardice but knew that it was for the best, at least until he could gather his wits.

When the door finally opened though, Shizuo was almost certain that the one who had just entered the hospital room was Izaya. He didn't know how he knew it but he just did. Maybe it was Izaya's smell, that smell he could still remember enveloping him while wearing that stupid jacket he'd ended up ruining like the idiot that he was by bleeding all over it, or maybe it was something that he couldn't explain, that same something that made him sometimes be able to tell when the flea was in Ikebukuro, as though he could somehow feel the bastard's presence, but whatever it was, it identified the person as Orihara Izaya. The sound of a chair being dragged closer to the bed reached his ears and Shizuo knew that he couldn't move a muscle least he wanted to give away the fact that he was pretending to be asleep.

"Still not awake, huh?" Izaya said, sounding disappointed, and took a seat. "You need to wake up soon to give me that answer, but also to put Kasu-chan's mind at ease."

With a sigh, Izaya stood up and moved to the window. "I still can't believe you somehow managed to get up and find me after something like that. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead. That bastard Kuro was... well, he was―" There was a groan coming from the bed and Izaya turned around, brown-red eyes zooming in on Shizuo's sleepy face. "You're awake!" he exclaimed in surprise and rushed to the bed. "Do you know who I am? How many fingers am I holding?"

"Three," Shizuo uttered tiredly and then winced when his dry lips further cracked. He would've very much preferred to not talk to anyone yet, but he didn't want to betray the little trust Izaya had in him by listening in when the flea thought he was asleep and might not have wanted him to actually hear those things. "Water," he requested without even looking at Izaya, too ashamed to meet his eyes after he'd shown him the worst part of himself not once but twice. "Thanks," he then mumbled before greedily drinking much the needed liquid. "I'm surprised the police haven't handcuffed me yet," Shizuo remarked and tried to smile, but the smile wasn't quite reaching his eyes.

Izaya quirked an eyebrow. "Why would they?"

Finally, Shizuo's met Izaya's eyes. "I killed a man."

With a sigh, Izaya ran a hand through his hair. "Kuro was going to die either way. You just happened to kill him before Sato-san could get his hands on him."

"Yeah, but still, I―"

"It's taken care of," Izaya interrupted him, his voice a little louder than normal.

"What happened after I passed out?" Shizuo asked and handed Izaya the glass.

Izaya took it and his eyes drifted over to the glass as he recalled the events of that night. "After you lost consciousness, I took my phone back from Kuro and called for help. As you can imagine, I couldn't exactly call an ambulance with Kuro's dead body lying next to us, so I had no choice but to call Shinra." Here, Izaya stopped and let out a small sigh. "I was expecting a fight before I could finally convince him to help, but he agreed to come pretty quickly once he heard that you got shot because you protected me."

Shizuo couldn't help but smile even as he felt that suffocating pain in his chest every time he thought about how he'd disappointed and angered his friends.

"Afterwards, I called Sato-san and quickly explained the situation as best as I could without giving away anything that I didn't need anyone else to know," Izaya continued, unable to hide the relief in his voice because the last thing he needed was to deal with the police on top of everything else. "Shinra and Celty arrived there first and Celty rushed you back to their apartment while the Awakusu-kai, who got there a few minutes later, gave Shinra and me a ride. I don't know what exactly happened afterwards, only that they 'took care of it' as they put it. Anyway," Izaya then said as his eyes focused on Shizuo's face once again, "how did you find me?"

Shizuo didn't answer right away; he couldn't. He was still trying to process the fact that he wasn't going to prison when he felt a hand on his shoulder and his head snapped up, surprised to see Izaya giving him a worried look.

"I should probably call Sakamoto," Izaya mused as he pulled back his hand.

"W-What? Why?"

"You're spacing out again," Izaya said as he started heading for the door. "I'll be right back."

"No, wait! What do you mean by 'again?'"

Izaya stopped, his frown deepening since it looked like Shizuo couldn't recall anything after he'd passed out inside that abandoned building. He walked back to the chair and sat down, deciding it was best to tell Shizuo what had happened since the blond looked really close to panicking. "At first, we took you to Shinra's place. He took care of the bullet wound and then we left you to rest in Celty's room. The two of them went to sleep in Shinra's room while I stayed in the living room and watched TV because I couldn't sleep. The sun was just about to rise when you staggered into the living room, mumbling apologies to me, begging me to not be afraid of you and promising to never hurt me again."

A gasp slipped past Shizuo's lips and he stared at Izaya for a few moments before lowering his head in shame. "I don't remember any of that..." It wasn't that he regretted apologizing after showing Izaya the monstrous side of him that the poor flea shouldn't have ever been forced to see again, but he didn't like that he had no memory of it.

"And then you passed out again."

"I... I don't remember..."

"Luckily, you passed out on the couch, and since it was still too early and I didn't want to wake Shinra up yet, I left you there. I did however move you to a more comfortable position."

"Uh... thanks," Shizuo said awkwardly.

"That wasn't the end of it though," Izaya said as he recalled the next strange scene he'd witnessed.

Shizuo's heart was already racing, but the fact that he'd done even more things he couldn't remember made it go wild. "W-What else did I do?"

"You woke up again a few hours later, but this time you didn't say anything. Instead you cried for a few minutes while staring at your trembling hands before passing out again. That's when we decided to take you to the hospital and called Sakamoto."

"I... I don't know what to say," Shizuo uttered, shocked by what he'd just heard. "Why can't I remember?"

"Brain swelling," Izaya answered as he reclined further into the chair. "Putting yourself in harm's way to save me... what were you thinking? You could've died, you know?"

"I wasn't thinking," Shizuo said as he stared at Izaya.

"So once again your instincts told you to protect me instead of saving yourself?" Izaya laughed mockingly. "It’s becoming a trend…" he then mused. "You do know that you're the one who hurt me the most in this entire world, right?"

"I know," Shizuo answered in a sad voice as his fingers dug into his chest, right above the heart. "Your answer... I can give it now."

Izaya stopped breathing for a second and it took everything in his power to say the next words. "Why? So that later when you will regret it, you can pretend you don't remember saying it? No, Shizu-chan, that's not a risk I'm willing to take. You will tell me everything I want to know, but only after Sakamoto says it's safe to leave the hospital."

Surprised mocha eyes focused on Izaya's face. "Are you sure?"

Izaya nodded, stood up and then walked over to the window.

"Uhm... I'm sorry about ruining your jacket," Shizuo said, thinking it was best to change the subject.

"It's fine. It's just a jacket," Izaya said with a shrug.

"Just a jacket?" Shizuo repeated, eyes wide because it was unlike Izaya to not care.

"Yeah, just a jacket." Izaya then turned around and rolled his eyes. "I can buy another, you know?"

"Yeah, but―"

"It was my decision to put it on you after Kuro told me to take it off, so don't worry about it," Izaya revealed and he blinked in surprise when Shizuo's apologetic expression turned to one of fury.

"How far did he go before you managed to escape?" Shizuo growled the question as he fisted a hand into the sheet, suddenly feeling the urge to break something.

Izaya chuckled as he reclined against the window sill. "I'll never get used to you caring."

"Just answer the question!"

Izaya winced at the raised tone. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Izaya..."

"Not very far," Izaya finally answered and hoped that Shizuo would drop the subject.

"What does that even mean??"

"Stop it!" Izaya shouted in anger as he kicked the chair straight into the side of the hospital bed. "It's none of your fucking business! You might have saved my life, but I don't owe you anything, so stop acting like you're pissed that Kuro touched something that was yours because I was never yours!" Izaya then stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him, pissed that Shizuo had asked him about things he did not wish to talk about, as though the stupid monster had any right to do so.

***

When he had woken up that day, Kasuka never imagined that he'd end up going out to dinner with Izaya's sisters of all people. He'd run into them at the hospital and he hadn't been able to refuse them, especially not when they looked like they might burst into tears. He had a feeling that they were acting, just like Izaya sometimes did to get what he wanted, but he couldn't prove it and as such, he had no choice but to accept their invitation.

"Hanejima-san, okay?" Kururi asked when she noticed that the actor looked uncomfortable.

"I'm fine," Kasuka replied and hoped that he sounded like the usual Hanejima Yuuhei instead of the thing Adabashi had turned him into with all that torture. "I'm just worried about my brother."

Mairu sighed softly. "Your brother will be okay. He always is, isn't he? Even when Iza-nii cuts him up, he still walks away as though it's nothing."

"Iza-nii, fault?" Kururi inquired.

"No, no, it wasn't Izaya's fault," Kasuka tried to assure them even though he already knew that wasn't the whole truth. Izaya had told him that Shizuo saved him from a very dangerous man and Kasuka couldn't deny that he was proud of his brother even if the blond had put his life in danger. No matter how much of an asshole Izaya was at times, Kasuka still believed that the man didn't deserved what Shizuo had done to him, and the mere fact that he was in the presence of Izaya's sisters made him feel uncomfortable. He might not have been the one who hurt Izaya, but he still felt responsible for his brother's actions because he was family and because he thought he should've put more effort into trying to help Shizuo instead of abandoning him and only buying him some clothes once in a blue moon.

"You know, Kururi asked Iza-nii to find you," Mairu said as she placed the chopsticks down. "It's good that you managed to escape on your own since our useless brother might never have found you."

Kasuka felt a bit sad at Mairu's words because he didn't think Izaya was useless. If anything, Kasuka himself was the useless one, the one who had betrayed Izaya by spilling secrets to Adabashi. "Your brother has helped me a lot lately," he said after a few long moments of silence, taking the twins by surprise with his statement.

"Iza-nii did?" Mairu asked in a disbelieving tone. "Hah!" she then exclaimed.

Kasuka simply nodded and took another bite from the food he'd ordered, chewing slowly.

"He probably wants something from you," Mairu hissed, not liking what she'd just heard. "She knew Izaya well and she didn't want her brother to mess with Hanejima Yuuhei.

"You don't need to worry about it," Kasuka tried to reassure them, but it didn't look like he was succeeding judging by their doubtful expressions. Kururi looked especially worried.

"Iza-nii scheming," Kururi said softly. "Always."

Not knowing what else to say, Kasuka settled on, "I'll be careful." The twins didn't know what Izaya had been through and as such they could never understand why their brother would seek out someone who had experienced the horror of knowing what it was like to be helpless and at someone else's mercy. He also hoped that the two sisters would never find themselves in such a situation and made a mental note to ask Izaya more about his sisters and if he was looking out for them in any way. Just as Izaya had tried to use him against Shizuo he feared that people who hated the Informant might decide to use the twins to get back at Izaya.

A feeling of horror gripped his heart and he had to force himself to calm down least he wanted to worry the devious and yet still innocent girls before him. Kasuka barely knew them and yet he couldn't stand the thought of anything bad happening to them. One Orihara sibling being put through hell was more than enough.

"Let us talk about more pleasant things," Kasuka suggested and was grateful when the twins seemed to agree and began asking him about the movies he’d worked on, the people he'd met and the places he'd seen.

***

Shizuo spent the next hour or so cringing to himself over how badly he'd fucked up once again. Of course Izaya didn't belong to him, and of course he knew that, oh, he knew it alright, but it still didn't stop him from being angry at himself for having made it so obvious to Izaya that even though he didn't believe it, a part of him might have felt it, that same disgusting part of him that Izaya hated so much. He never thought that he could despise Kuro more after what the man had done to him, but he had to admit that the bastard putting his hands on Izaya infuriated him enough to wish he could bring him back to life only so that he could kill him again, but this time more slowly and painfully. He could almost see it in his mind, how he would start by breaking his legs and then―

And then he felt himself going cold because he'd just killed a man and the monster within him didn't even seem to care. If anything, it wanted more blood and more violence.

That's not me! That's not me! I'm not like that! I―

But he was. There was no denying that he'd killed Kuro, just as there was no denying that he'd raped Izaya. This time, however, it was different. This time he'd done it because―

No, even admitting it would be too painful, and he couldn't stand more pain when it already felt as though he was drowning in a sea of it. What he needed to do was to confess the truth to Izaya and then leave his fate into the other man's hands. No matter what Izaya wanted to do afterwards, even if that was to stand there and allow the Informant to kill him, Shizuo would do it.

"It's the least I can do for you,"  Shizuo uttered in a broken voice as he lay back down on the hospital bad, curling in on himself and gripping blonde locks as the reality of the monster he had become truly hit him. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to even calm down before someone was knocking on the door, a startled Shizuo springing to a sitting position. He knew it wasn't Izaya because Izaya would've simply walked in, so the uncertainty made his heart race. What if it was the police after all? What if they had come to arrest him? What if―

The door opened and Shizuo's already wide eyes widened even further at the sight of Shinra walking in, the doctor followed by Celty who looked extremely relieved to see him awake. Shizuo's mouth fell open in surprise, and before he could even say something, Celty was next to him, hugging him and telling him how worried she'd been about him and how happy she was to see him awake.

"I don't deserve your worry," Shizuo said, chocking with emotion because Celty was being too kind to a monster like him. "You know what I did, what I have become. I―"

"I don't care," Celty whispered softly as she pulled away. "That man was going to kill you guys. I'd much rather he be dead instead of either you or Izaya."

Shizuo tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes and he knew that Celty could see it too judging by the sad expression she was giving him.

"Listen, I can't stay right now because I have an errand to run. I only dropped by to see how you were doing since we were in the neighborhood after Shinra went to check on the injured Awakusu-kai member, but I'll come back tomorrow and we can talk more then," Celty said and gave him another hug before moving away from the bed and turning to Shinra.

"You go on ahead," Shinra said, his request obviously taking his beloved by surprise since she was looking at him as though he'd grown a second head.

Celty turned to Shizuo, silently asking him if that was okay and then headed for the door after Shizuo gave him a small node. She didn't think it was a good idea to leave these two alone, but then again, maybe that was exactly what they needed. "I'll see you at home," she said without turning around and then walked out the door, praying that the two of them would be able to talk like civilized people.

Inside the room, Shizuo had frozen in a sitting position on the hospital bed, Shinra's eyes boring so intensely into him that it seriously made him nervous. It wasn't that he thought Shinra could ever win in a fair fight, but he knew the man and what he was capable of and he had no doubt that if Shinra wanted to make him suffer, he would find a way.

"What happened?" Shinra asked after a few long moments of tense silence.

"Hasn't Izaya told you already?"

"The only thing he told me is that you got hurt trying to protect him," Shinra spat in anger as he picked up the chair and sat in it, not really giving too much thought as to how it had ended up on its side to begin with. He was far more concerned about what these two were hiding and he was going to get to the bottom of it even if it mean forcing Shizuo to tell him. No matter what, he would get his answers. "Tell me what happened."

"I can't," Shizuo said and swallowed nervously when he saw Shinra pull out a scalpel out of the pocket of his white coat.

"I think you're misunderstanding something," Shinra said calmly, smiling. "You probably think that I'm a good person, but you know what? I've known all this time where Celty's head was, but I kept it a secret from her because I wanted my beloved to stay by my side forever. I'm kind of a villain, you know?"

Shizuo stared in shock. Even though he believed the doctor to be capable of a lot of things, he never even imagined that Shinra would hide something like that from Celty. "Yeah, you're somewhat of a villain, but I don't have any right to judge you." Sighing, he ran a shaky hand through his hair, aware that he'd done much worse for the simple reason that he'd wanted Izaya. He'd also obviously wanted to punish him, but what had pushed him over the edge of sanity had been the need to just take the flea's body to sate that desire burning deep inside him.

"The point I'm trying to make is that I can make you talk, but I'd much rather you told me what happened by your own volition. You owe me this much after I've saved your life," Shinra reminded him and pushed the scalpel back into his pocket.

"I should break your legs for threatening me," Shizuo said, smiling a bit. The truth was that he was missing that not-really-friendship they used the have and which he'd destroyed along with the fearless Informant.

Shinra laughed in response. "You wouldn't." He then sighed. "I just don't understand why he wouldn't tell me. He'd told me everything else," he added, feeling a little bit betrayed. "I've seen him at his worst, so what could he possibly need to hide from me?"

That's when Shizuo understood why Izaya had kept everything a secret. "He did it because of me," he said and his heart broke just a little bit more at the fact that Izaya was being considerate towards him when Shizuo didn't even deserve such a thing from the person he'd destroyed.

"What do you mean?" Shinra asked as he furrowed his brows in confusion.

"While it's true that Kuro's intention had been to kill Izaya, that wasn't the only thing he was after. That guy... he... he was after me as well," Shizuo revealed. "I can't tell you why though. It's just... it's not something I want to talk about with anyone," he then added as he lowered his head in shame and recalled what Kuro had done to him in that warehouse, how he'd humiliated him and how close he'd come to showing him exactly what Izaya must've felt that night. A chill ran up Shizuo's spine and he shuddered, blood pounding in his ears as he recalled that utter fear he'd felt when those men had grabbed him by the arms and then forced his mouth open. If Izaya hadn't called...

Shizuo swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head, struggling to chase away the horrible memory that still haunted him so vividly. If that had been enough to scar him for life, he couldn't even begin to imagine how Izaya must feel like. How could the flea even get out of the apartment or just exist, knowing that something like that could happen again?

"Izaya thinks you've changed. To be honest, I wouldn't have cared before, but after what you did, I hope he's right. I want to believe that as well, but I find it hard to do so when both of you are keeping secrets from me. After everything I've done for the both of you, you can't even tell me why that guy was after you," Shinra hissed in anger. "In the end, I truly am nothing more than the idiot you two go to only when you get hurt or need something," he then added, sounding betrayed.

"That's not true!" Shizuo tried to argue. "Izaya really cares about you and I... I miss listening to your silly rants about how much you love Celty," Shizuo admitted. "I was so angry when Adabashi hurt you..."

Shinra flinched at the memory but said nothing, curious to hear more of what Shizuo had to say.

"I know you hate me and you have every right to do so, and even though you make me so angry at times that I want to break your legs, I still don't want you to get hurt. I'm grateful that you saved my life again, but the thing with Kuro is private and not something I want to talk about. Please understand," Shizuo pleaded, but it didn't look like Shinra was moved by anything he'd said, and if he was, the man wasn't showing it.

"So you want me to trust you even though you don't trust me? That sounds fair," Shinra said sarcastically and then waited for Shizuo to say something, but the silence stretched for a long time and Shinra was just about to stand up and get out of there when the blond finally spoke.

"It... it happened after Adabashi fooled me into thinking that Izaya had taken Kasuka," Shizuo said in a voice so low that he wondered if Shinra could even hear him. "Izaya hired that guy to make me tell him where I was hiding Celty's head."

Shinra was so startled by Shizuo talking that he didn't even dare tell Shizuo to speak louder in fear that he might make the blond reconsider his decision of telling him what had happened. Still, it was loud enough for him to understand and that was more than he could ask for seeing how reluctant Shizuo had been to say anything to begin with. If anything, Shinra was starting to get a bit worried because of how much Shizuo was struggling to tell him the story. He'd never seen Shizuo so afraid of someone that wasn't Izaya.

"They threatened my family," Shizuo said fearfully when he remembered those sick fucks being in close proximity to his parents. "If I didn't do what they said, they would’ve killed them. I had no choice!"

Okay, Shinra thought, confused as to why Shizuo was trying to justify whatever he'd done. It wasn't like he didn't understand. He too would do anything for Celty. Still, he remained silent, letting Shizuo tell the story at his own pace.

"They took me to a warehouse and..." Shizuo said and then froze, lost in the memory that was that day.

"And?" Shinra asked softly when it looked like Shizuo couldn't continue. It was strange to see Shizuo looking so vulnerable, which led him to believe that whatever had happened there, it must've deeply affected Ikebukuro's strongest.

He didn't have to wonder for much longer though. Soon enough the words were spilling past Shizuo's lips so fast that Shinra could barely keep up with what the man was saying. Shizuo told him about the collar, the leash and the cake, about how they held him and about what Kuro was planning to do, but he didn't end there and kept talking, even going so far as to tell him about how he'd ran into Kuro inside a restaurant and what the man had tried doing to him, how Izaya had saved him. He also told him about the other encounters he'd had with Kuro, as well as how angry he'd been at the thought of Kuro touching Izaya, trying to hurt him, so angry that he'd given in to his rage and crushed the man's skull.

"It was the only way to stop him," Shizuo finally finished in a broken voice, eyes wide as he stared at Shinra even though he wasn't exactly seeing him, too lost in a whirlwind of dark memories that he couldn't erase no matter how much he wished otherwise.

Shinra on the other hand was so stunned that he didn't even know what to say. He'd never expected to see Shizuo like this, to hear him being so afraid and so disturbed by someone he could easily defeat in a fair fight, but it hadn't been a fair fight and Shinra could only imagine the stress the blond must've been under to go as far as to ask him for help to disappear. Finally, he settled on one simple truth. "You did what you had to do." He then sat up and headed to the window, wanting to give Shizuo a few moments to collect himself. "You protected Izaya," he added as he stared out into the night. "You saved him."

"No," Shizuo said brokenly. "What I did was show him that monster again."

Sighing, Shinra headed back to the chair since it looked like Shizuo was being an idiot. "Look, I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not angry at you. I will never forgive you for breaking my best friend, but I don't think you could ever hurt Izaya again. You're stupid, so you care too much about him."

Shizuo's expression contorted into one of anguish and he lowered his head, feeling far too ashamed to even meet Shinra's gaze. "I hate him," he said tiredly, "but at the same time I don't want him to get hurt anymore. I can't stand to see it. Every time I remember the way his eyes looked after I... after... I... I feel as though I'm dying on the inside. Someone like Izaya should've never had to be afraid of me. I fucked up. I thought that I wanted to hurt him, but the truth is that I miss the fearless flea who would challenge me at every turn. I broke his wings, Shinra," he said, finally meeting his eyes. "I ruined him."

"Yeah, you did," Shinra said with a sigh. "You know," he then continued, sounding a bit nostalgic, "back when we were in high school, I truly hoped that you two would get along, that the three of us could become friends. I mean, yes, at first I did it because Celty told me to make friends, but the more time I spent with you two, the more I wanted us to get along, so when the day finally came that I introduced you to one another, I was really hopeful."

"I ruined that too."

"Yes, you ruined that too. I can't deny that I was a bit disappointed, but what ended up happening was pretty amusing, so I can't say that I was too broken up about it in the end. I was okay with patching you two idiots up. I was okay with you trying to kill each other." The sad smile disappeared, only to be replaced by a harsh expression. "But you ruined that too. You ruined the relative peace the three of us had. You destroyed one of us in the worst possible way, and that's exactly why I will never be able to forgive you. I know that I'm selfish, but that's just the way I am. Sometimes I think that I hate you more for disrupting the balance we had than for what you did to Izaya, and in moments like that I hate myself so much and I blame you because I wouldn't even be thinking such a thing if it hadn't been for you losing your mind and crushing Izaya’s spirit." He'd hissed the last words, each syllable dripping with the poison he'd been feeling festering inside his heart ever since that night. "You disrupted my every day peace, you made me choose between the two of you and you made me care about a human more than I ever wanted to care."

"I'm sorry," was all Shizuo could say since no words would ever be enough to express his regret over having messed up so many lives because he'd been too weak to control his rage.

"Still," Shinra continued as though he hadn't even heard Shizuo speak, "you decided to trust me enough to tell me about that Kuro guy, so I will grant you the same courtesy and from now on trust you to never hurt Izaya again." He then got up, gave Shizuo one last look and headed in the direction of the door. He did however stop once his fingers touched the handle. There was one more thing he wanted the idiotic blond to know. "I almost pity you. What I lost is nothing compared to what you lost," he said and with that he walked out the door, wondering if Shizuo even understood the meaning of his words.