"Shizu-chaaaan!"

It's another day, another encounter, ending with cars overturned and streets destroyed. Shizuo knows that it'll take a while to repair the damage, but he can't really bring himself to care. He has managed to injure his enemy's shoulder today, and somehow that makes him even angrier than he was before.

Shizuo prays for the day he can finally be rid of Izaya Orihara. Heading home after the bastard has escaped him yet again, mood foul, he glares at all who cross his path.

"Look up hostility in the dictionary, and you'll see a picture of Shizuo Heiwajima."

The words cloud his brain; Shizuo remembers the speaking face of a witness to last week's episode and clenches his fists. Eyeing him warily, the citizens of Ikebukuro give him a wide distance, not wanting to come close for fear of attack.

Shizuo reaches his address in a scarlet rage, ready to snap at any given moment until-

He sees the shiny purple car parked in front of his residence. Kasuka is here, and Kasuka is not afraid. Kasuka perceives the fact that Shizuo would never hurt him. The blonde's annoyance dissipates, if only by a fraction of an inch.

His younger sibling is already waiting in the small place that Shizuo inhabits, seated at the table while flipping through a magazine, wearing an utterly uninterested expression. He looks up as Shizuo enters.

"Shizu-nii."

Words come tumbling suddenly out of Shizuo's mouth in a growling mess. "Kill, kill, I want to kill him, kill kill kill kill kill kill-"

"Repeat something calming." Kasuka instructs blankly. His level stare bores into Shizuo, and he finds the mantra he's taken up changing.

"…Kasuka. Kasuka, Kasuka, Kasuka, Kasuka-" The would-be bartender can't say his brother's name with the same hatred he can all the other words. He realizes it's actually working, the subtly adoring tone he can't help but use.

"Think of a relaxing place."

And Shizuo is on the playground from his childhood, just him and Kasuka, and Kasuka is telling him that he's not scared in that familiar, quiet, monotone.

"Focus on something else."

Shizuo does. He examines Kasuka's clothes, his face, everything. He thinks to himself in satisfaction that Kasuka seems to be in perfect health, that he must be doing well, that he's put aside time in his impossibly busy schedule to come and see him.

"Breathe." Inhale, exhale. "…Better?"

"Yeah," Shizuo says. He closes his eyes.

The strongest man in Ikebukuro moves forward to embrace the one person who can stand to be touched. Kasuka brings thin arms up to wrap around Shizuo's lower back.

"Missed you."

Shizuo hopes that it's not too wrong for him to be completely smitten with his little brother.