Shizuo walked the the hospital halls, the pungent odor of antiseptic hanging in the air. It had been a week since the accident. Izaya had been doing business with the Awakusu as usual and got them what they needed. Unbeknownst to the raven, a member from a rival group had staked him out. As Izaya made his way back to his apartment, to Shizuo, he was shot. A passerby heard the gunshot and called the police. The culprit was gone by the time help arrived.
Hazy brown eyes crakced open as Shizuo closed the door behind him. A sad, painful smile tugged at the raven's lips.
"Hey, babe, how are you feeling?"
"It hurts to move. I don't want to die, Shizu-chan. I don't want to leave you."
"..." Shizuo didn't know what to say to that. After all their years of fighting, they finally got together, only for it to come down to this. It was cruel and unfair. They were barely given a chance.
"Is there... anything you want to do... ya know... before..." Shizuo couldn't say it. The very thought twisted his heart, tore his chest, opening an already tender wound.
"This is going to sound really soft, but I wanted to see the cherry blossoms with you." It was a simple request, one most people wouldn't expect out of someone as prideful as Orihara Izaya.
He looked up at Shizuo expectantly, like a child or a puppy. It pulled at Shizuo's heartstrings to see the person he loved lying in a hospital bed, his life slowly ebbing away.
'Don't cry. Stay strong, for Izaya's sake.' He fought back the tears, knealing next to Izaya, cupping his face - how pale the skin had become - with his hands. The once playful light of Izaya's eyes was flickering, threatening to go out any time now. He knew how much pain Izaya was in, and he couldn't do anything about it.
His fists - good only for destruction - couldn't punch their way through this one.
"Shizu-chan?" The soft call of Izaya's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"I'm so sorry, Izaya. No matter what, I will take you to see the cherry blossoms." He cursed himself internally for the voice crack. He didn't want Izaya to see what this was really doing to him.
Shizuo couldn't even sleep in their bed anymore. The scent of Izaya, the memory of Izaya, was still there. Without him, it felt wrong on several levels. They had slept there, Izaya snuggled close to Shizuo's chest and tightly wrapped in the blond's arms, almost every night since they'd started dating. The raven was no longer there, no longer warm in Shizuo's embrace, his soft, steady breaths tickling the bare skin of Shizuo's chest.
'Why?' Shizuo constantly asked himself. 'Why couldn't I have been there? Why didn't I protect him?" Blaming himself all the time, Shizuo only got worse. Multiple times, Izaya, wounded and dying, would remind him that nothing was Shizuo's fault.
A couple days later, permission was granted to allow Shizuo to take Izaya outside the hospital. It was sunny, pleasantly warm with a gentle breeze. It was perfect. Or it would have been if not for the looming thought of injury and death.
"Wow, they're so pretty." Izaya was looking this way and that at the masses of blossoms on the tree branches. They were like clouds of pink. A sweet aroma floated through the air, soothing thise there to veiw the beautiful flowers in full bloom.
Shizuo gingerly lifted Izaya from his wheel chair, sitting down under one of the trees with the raven in his lap. He petted Izaya's hair. It wasn't as soft as it normally was, nor was it as well kept. He could see the tiredness in Izaya's eyes. He knew that it was close.
"Thank you, Shizuo. This is the nicest thing someone has ever done for me." A pang of sadness and pain squeezed Shizuo's heart.
"O-Of course. Anything for you," Shizuo choked through his tears. Izaya leaned back against Shizuo, using the blond's shoulder as a head rest. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs - painfully as it felt like needles piercing his chest - with fresh air. It smelled much more pleasant than the the hospital, reeking of midicine and illness.
Seeing Izaya had close his eyes, Shizuo gently shook him, but the raven didn't move. Whispering his name resulted in nothing either. Realization slowly crept over Shizuo as he buried his face in Izaya's shoulder - still warm - and cried, tears soaking the material of the shirt. A hand ghosted over the back of his, squeezing with what little strength was left before all went still and Shizuo's mind went blank.