I was walking through Ikebukuro with Tom when I smelled it. A stench that was worse than dirty dog, week old body odor, and rotten food all mixed together. A smell that reeked this bad could only be one thing…. Izaya.

"Tom, I have to go do something." With a knowing nod, he excused me.

I rounded two corners, and then there he was, skipping down the sidewalk. And, god, just his enjoying himself pissed me off.

I lifted a vending machine and prepared to throw it, announcing myself with a yell, "Izayaaaaaa!". As soon as the words left my mouth, I paused, noticing a group with green on heading in his direction. Izaya had noticed them too and was running to the right, through an alley. I don't care who these guys are, they are not getting in the way of our fight.

I dropped the vending machine like a sack of potatoes and bolted off, following the group through alleys and across streets. When Izaya finally stopped I noticed we had lost the gang. Good, now we could fight. I ripped the nearest object out of the ground, which happened to be a light post. Izaya turned around, smiling with his switchblade in hand. When I swung the light post at his chest, however, he managed to jump over it.

As he was in the air, he twisted around, landed, and then took off. For a second, I stood in awe of his maneuvering abilities. I snapped out of it when I realized he was running back toward town. A trash can could easily fix that. If I threw to Izaya's left, I could get him to turn away from town and the people who could get injured. But, Izaya didn't dash down another alley like I had expected. Instead, he hopped the gate blocking the entrance to a pool.

Once I bent the bars of the entrance gate enough for me to fit through, I stepped into darkness. As I neared the opposite end of the corridor where sunlight was shining through, one of Izaya's switchblades whizzed by, cutting my cheek. Once I emerged from the other end into the pool area, the fight continued as it normally would with me throwing chairs and Izaya cutting me. That is, until the gang in green showed up again. They started attacking both of us, and in that moment I was forced to team up with Izaya. As soon as we get rid of these guys though, I was going to kill him.

During the course of the fight Izaya kept trying to get me closer to the pool, but I wasn't going to fall for it. I knew that he would probably knock me in the first chance he got. After what felt like only a minute, we had managed to take out all of them except three. I was getting ready to throw the guy I currently had through the air, when I heard a loud bang followed by scraping. I looked to my right and saw a van coming through the crumbling wall. It didn't stop there though, it kept coming. My brain couldn't process what was happening. My body wouldn't move. Izaya's voice sounded muffled in my ears.

"Shizuo!" What took me most by surprise in this whole situation wasn't the van speeding toward me, or the fact that the gang had found us, but the panic in Izaya's voice. A split second later, the van made impact with my body. I was knocked left, into Izaya, and we both tumbled into the deep end of the pool.

I felt him grab onto my arms, but when we hit the water, the force pried his hands off. When I came up coughing and trying to suck air back into my lungs, the three goons were jumping into the back of the van. It took me a minute to snap out of my trance. When I did, the van was speeding out of the hole they had created and Izaya was splashing around.

"What's wrong with you?" I called, already making my way to the ladder.

"I can't… swim!" he looked like he was hyperventilating before going under again, but I know he is a good actor. I just stood on the edge of the pool and watched. When he didn't resurface after almost a minute, however, I actually started to believe it. As much as I want him to die, I want to be the one to kill him, not water.

Before I realized what I was doing, I jumped back in. It only took about five seconds to reach Izaya. When I did, he got me in a death grip from panic. I had to pry him off in order to wrap my arm across his back and under his arms so I could get us to the surface. Once I pulled Izaya up he started coughing. As we headed toward the ladder, he got his breathing under control but started shaking. I let him go when we got to the ladder, but instead of grabbing onto it, he just sank. I had to yank him back up by his shirt.

"Idiot! Grab onto the ladder!" He looked at me for a few seconds with a blank stare, then his hands shakily found the rungs. Instead of climbing up, he just hung there.

"What are you doing?" Izaya gave no answer, so I hauled him up after I was out and tossed him onto the hard, concrete ground around the pool. After a minute or so, he slowly pulled his knees up to his chest and started shivering on top of his shaking.

"Can you be a doll and get me a towel, Shizu-Chan?"

"I'm not your mother."

"Fine." He tried to stand only to fall back down. Then he tried it again, taking his time. He managed to stand up, but his steps were unsteady and he stumbled multiple times before falling down again. I slowly walked by him and got a towel out of the towel rack, walked back and dropped it on his head.

"I thought you weren't going to get me a towel?"

"You were being pathetic."

"Then why don't you kill me? You've been trying to for years."

"It's not the same if I kill you when you aren't able to fight." Silence filled the air as Izaya stood up again, but didn't attempt to walk. "Why are you like this right now anyway?"

"I must have hit my head or something."

"Okay."