Izaya's expecting company when the door to the library opens.

He's been waiting for hours. There are always a few after-school stragglers who cling to the weight of textbooks and sheets of notes as if to stave off the failing grades they are sure to get on their next tests; Izaya is always amused by those, and impressed by the ones who linger to force their way through troublesome assignments and difficult readings. Some of those might pass their tests, he thinks, or maybe some of the less dedicated ones will and those who worked hard will find themselves undone by the overwork of their own studying. There's no way to know for sure, just hypotheses and possibility forming themselves from the rhythm of hundreds of lives overlapping and tangling together; the thought makes Izaya smile from his perch on the windowsill, makes him tip his head back against the wall behind him and close his eyes like he can make a vision of the future from the rustle of pages and the scratch of pencils. But even the most determined of desperate students only manages an hour after the close of classes, and it's all the way into the dusky orange of falling twilight by the time the creak of the door announces a new visitor. Izaya doesn't turn his head to see who it is standing silhouetted by the weight of the doorframe. He doesn't need to see to know.

"Shizu-chan," he says, letting the syllables spill from his tongue before he tips his head to the side to let his gaze arc from the ceiling down to blond hair, dark eyes, tense fists. "How did you like the present I arranged for you?"

"Be quiet," Shizuo growls in what manages to be an undertone in spite of the grit of irritation hanging heavy in his throat. "You should be quiet in a library."

"But you're so far away," Izaya drawls, affecting a pout as hollow as his displays of emotion usually are. "How can I know you're listening if I don't raise my voice?"

"I don't want to listen," Shizuo tells him, and steps forward into the space. The door swings shut behind him but Izaya only notices the motion distantly; Shizuo is coming towards him, after all, and it always serves him best to devote his full attention to Heiwajima Shizuo in situations like this. "I don't want to hear more of your lies."

"'Lies'?" Izaya repeats, lifting his head from the support of the wall behind him as he turns enough to let one leg slide off the support of the windowsill and dangle over the edge. He braces one arm behind himself and lets his whole body slouch back against the support so he can tip himself into the best imitation of indolence he can manage, even if he doubts Shizuo will notice this minor attempt at needling. "What, are you accusing me of being a liar now, Shizu-chan?"

"You are a liar," Shizuo insists, crossing the last remaining foot of distance between them to plant himself squarely in front of Izaya sitting on the windowsill. The loose curtain drawn to one side ruffles with his motion but he doesn't glance at it; all his focus is fixed unswervingly on Izaya in front of him. "You said you had nothing to do with those letters."

"Ah," Izaya says. "Did I? Well. I suppose that was a lie, come to think of it." He lets his mouth pull up at one corner, lets the edge of a smile drag at his lips as he straightens to upright and lifts his head from its deliberate tilt. "Really, what were you thinking, believing me?"

"I didn't," Shizuo growls. Izaya can feel the rumble of the words run down the whole length of his spine like thunder answering the electricity of his speeding heartbeat. "I didn't, I knew you were behind it somehow."

"Did you?" Izaya lets his other leg slide off the edge of the windowsill to join the first and pivots against the support to face Shizuo fully. Shizuo's shoulders tense, his hands bracing tighter on the fists he hasn't let ease since he came in, but Izaya doesn't reach out to start a fight; he braces his hands against the edge of the sill under him instead, locking out his elbows for the extra support as he leans forward to encroach into Shizuo's personal space. When he looks up through his lashes Shizuo is scowling at him, his mouth drawn as tense as his shoulders and his eyes dark even with the light of the setting sun streaming through the window behind Izaya's shoulders. "You saw a love letter in your locker this morning and your first thought was of me?" His smile unfolds itself across his face, he can feel the edge of sincere delight threatening the corners of his eyes. "I'm flattered."

"Shut up," Shizuo tells him, his frown going deeper as Izaya's smile widens. "Of course it was you. You're always behind it somehow."

"I am," Izaya says, and tips himself sideways, leaning hard against his right hand so he can reach out with his left for the shine of gold light in Shizuo's hair. Shizuo flinches back, eying Izaya's open hand as warily as if his touch itself might be lethal, and Izaya raises an eyebrow and waits for Shizuo's gaze to come back to his face. "Come on, Shizu-chan, I'm not going to pick a fight in the library."

"You might," Shizuo growls, but he doesn't flinch away when Izaya moves this time, even when the other's fingers ghost against the strands of his hair. Izaya watches the shift of his fingers as he winds them into the soft yellow, and Shizuo's shoulder is tense when he lets his arm rest heavy against it but the other's still not pulling away.

"I'm pleased," Izaya announces, and lets his focus slide away from the drag of his fingers against sunlit gold and up along the line of Shizuo's tense jaw to the drag of the frown still at his mouth. "It was from me, after all."

"It sent me to a fight," Shizuo says, still staring at Izaya's eyes. "You weren't even there."

"No," Izaya allows. "But you knew where to find me." He presses his hand to Shizuo's neck, pulls to urge him close; Shizuo leans in by an inch, capitulating to the force of the other's hold, but he reaches his hand out over Izaya's shoulder to brace his hand against the glass of the window and hold himself upright against the pull of Izaya's fingers against his neck.

"We're at school," Shizuo says, as if this has never happened before, as if there's any difference between the abandoned school library and the shadows of an alley downtown. "Someone could see us."

"Everyone's left already," Izaya informs him. "You've kept me waiting for hours, Shizu-chan." He reaches out with his free hand to grab at the trailing edge of the curtain alongside the window; it flutters as he pulls it across, catching at Shizuo's hair before sliding free to drape around the other's shoulders and block the view to the door of the library.

Shizuo glances up at the weight of the curtain around them and huffs, his frown still hard at his mouth. "They'd still see me."

"But they wouldn't know you're with me." Izaya slides his other hand up and around Shizuo's neck to join the first, spreading his fingers wide to trail through the other's hair as he shifts his knees apart to make space for Shizuo to step forward between them. Shizuo's frown is lingering but his gaze drops down as Izaya pulls him forward again, his eyes sliding away from the other's to weight at his lips instead, and Izaya can feel the shift in Shizuo's attention like the purr of victory hot and electric in his veins. He tips his head back, making an offering of the part of his lips, and Shizuo's support against the window is going slack, he's tipping forward and in even as Izaya pulls to urge him closer. Shizuo's mouth weights at Izaya's, the force clumsy with the clinging weight of his irritation, but Izaya lets his lips go soft and fits the give of his mouth to the drag of Shizuo's to turn mere pressure into the give of a proper kiss. He can feel Shizuo's frown giving way, can feel the force of the other's frustration melting to heat against his mouth, and it's just as Shizuo's free hand comes up to catch at the back of his head that Izaya draws away to break free from the distraction of the other's mouth.

"Happy White Day, Shizu-chan," he manages, and if his voice is a little rougher than usual he doesn't think the heat-haze behind Shizuo's eyes will let the other spare the attention to notice. "Aren't you going to thank me for your present?"

"You," Shizuo growls, and his voice is low but his gaze is fixed to Izaya's mouth, and Izaya can feel his whole body shudder like it's thrumming itself into an answering resonance. "I hate you."

Izaya takes a breath of air hot from Shizuo's exhale, feels his skin prickle as if with electricity forming itself out of the fading sunlight around them. "Yeah," he says. "I hate you too." And he pulls Shizuo in against the sill, and Shizuo pushes him back against the window, and when Shizuo's mouth crushes against his this time Izaya shuts his eyes, and opens his mouth, and lets his voice fall to silence in exchange for a far better use of his lips.

Neither of them notice the glow of sunset fading to the soft dark of night on the other side of the window. They have better things to hold their attention.