"Ne, Namie-san. Don't you think the sky looks way too beautiful compared to the rest of the world around it?"

Namie looked up from her paperwork and blinked for a little while, her eyes staring confused over at the raven who was currently standing, looking down on the humans he claimed to love dearly. "I'm not quite sure what you mean by that..."

Izaya smirked softly and placed his hand on the cold glass of the window, letting the frosty cold softly sting his hand. "The world is filled with so much sorrow, hate, neglect and unnecessary hurtful actions. The list could go on. Yet, when we look around us, the earth is as beautiful as ever as if It was mocking us."

Namie didn't say anything. Her boss had always been a little weird, so she thought it was just another crazy phase of his to act so... Deep. Not that she cared, unless she got payed for it that is.

"Remind me again why I am still stuck with you, now that you've quit your job." Namie sighed and went back to the hundreds of files that she orginazed perfectly in folders.

Izaya turned around and sat in front of his desk with his eyes turned towards his secretary, his smirk getting wider. "Well I still have some clients that payed a well amount of money to get some information on their tables. It would be wrong to just leave them behind~!" He chuckled and shut his laptop off and pushed it away from him. He rested his head in his arms and breathed slowly in and out calmly. "That would go against my own rules~!" He mumbled.

"I'm just still surprised that the Awakusu let their favorite informant walk away from their grasp just like that in the first place..."

Izaya traced words into the dark wooden table beneath him, with soft brushes of his fingers and smiled softly. "There's many things you don't understand, Namie-san."

True though, the raven had been able to just walk away from their grasp without trouble. But had it not been for his close relationship to Kine, who once had been one of the only trustworthy members of the Awakusu. He might not have been able to quit. But Shiki was a respectful man, and somewhat trusted the former informant to not sell information on them and so on.

"The real question though is, why did you quit?"
Izaya snorted–

Because how was he going to explain that?

It was such a simple question. Yet the answer was complicated. Lines twisted around each other, creating a dull knot. And the raven couldn't untie it no matter how much he tried.

"Not your business, Namie-san. Just focus on your work so you can go home!" He shot a quick smile at her, and pulled out a familiar blank sheet of paper from his drawer and his pencil.

Namie didn't pay much attention to the new interest Izaya had taken, at first— whatever it was. But she couldn't help but peek at the raven a little once in a while.

It seemed so surreal to see the former informant sit with his head down on the desk. His left arm working somewhat as a pillow for the side of his head, and the other arm moving around from writing stuff she had no idea about. She would almost describe the man as an ordinary five year old, drawing messily with crayon and somehow getting color smudged out on their hand and face.

She shut down her laptop and walked over to the busy male with quiet steps.

Namie eyed the other papers scattered across the desk messily, like a student would do, and picked a sheet up out of curiousity.

"Humans are pretty much like dominos, falling easily, fragile, equel, and always falling, falling, falling because of other people, pushing them down from behind. And they won't even notice how far down they are before they are already on the ground. They can't go back, so they pull the person in front of them down with them to make themself feel better about their very own miserable lives..." Namie's voice faded out until it simply didn't exist anymore. And she was no longer reading the words that had been softly printed into the paper with the raven's pencil. The woman had no clue as to what caused him to write such.. Thing..

"You wrote this?" She asked in disbelief, her fingers tracing the pretty hiragana signs as she repeated them in her head like a broken record-player.

"Ah, you weren't supposed to read any of them." Izaya frowned slightly and swiftly took the paper from her hands. But the damage was sadly, already done.

"When in the world did you get into writing?" Her surprised tone melted away, and she let a short laugh escape her lips as she stared down at Izaya. And the former informant almost felt offended by the amused voice. His letters weren't for show. They came from deep within and was meant seriously.

"If I'm correct, then I told you to finish the fuck up." Izaya hissed lightly, yet the cruel woman only laughed and went back to her desk with a smile on her pale lips. Izaya usually became snappy when people saw the private sides of him. He still remembered the time he snapped at Shinra for annoying him about his parents. He liked to be a private person after all.

"To think that the all famous and feared information broker, Orihara Izaya, write stupid diary letters to himself, how pathetic can one go?" She chuckled darkly before finally returning to her work. Izaya only ignored her and kept on writing.

"Ehm... Shizuo.. You seem a little frustrated... Everything alright up there?"

Shizuo snapped out of his little trance and glanced down at his boss beside him with a small smile. "I guess, I have some stuff on my brain." he mumbled and went back to look at his feet while they walked.

"You know, It always helps to talk about things. You've been getting angered and frustrated more easily lately. It's quite concerning." Tom sighed and patted the taller man on his shoulder. Shizuo didn't say anything at first. He was acting a little weirder than usual, wasn't he? He often felt himself get angry at the simplest things he couldn't do, but It felt like It was getting worse somehow.

"It's just the flea getting on my nerves is all." That's right. It was always that flea's fault. He would always be behind something somehow. Even if it wasn't directly him behind it, he was always involved in it. Shizuo was sure that the bastard didn't even have 1% goodness in him.

"Orihara? Talking about him, It's been a while since I've seen him in town." Tom realized and put his hands in his pockets. Shizuo only snorted. "He's hiding in his apartment, scheming shit like the pathetic villain he is."

Tom thought It was wise to not ask how Shizuo was so sure of that. But still decided to speak up. "I thought he stopped sending gangs after you and stuff a little while back?"

Shizuo suddenly stopped in his tracks and stared confused at his boss. "Hah?"

"You said he's been getting on your nerves, but didn't he stop pestering you a while back?"

Shizuo stayed quiet for a minute, until he started walking again, Tom following right at his side. "I guess so.." the blond mumbled. But the frown on Shizuo's face told Tom that something was going on inside the debt collector's brain.

"Ne, Tom-san. Around how long has it been?" Shizuo suddenly asked. Tom thinked for a moment. "Around three months ago I think. Of course, he could be pestering you in private for all I know."

Seeing as Shizuo didn't answer back or did anything other than walk. Tom guessed that the feared informant hadn't been causing trouble at all.

As soon as the blond reached his climax, he pulled out from the raven pinned beneath him, and rolled over to the side of the bed. And the blond made sure to keep a good amount of space between the two as he pushed Izaya a little away from him. The ex-informant winced at the rough treatment, but didn't complain or voice his pain.

Izaya pulled the covers over his slim and fragile body that was covered in ugly bruises and bitemarks. He saw the blond lighting a cigarrate in the corner of his eye, but only rolled his eyes while turning his back to the monster.

The raven closed his eyes and tried to welcome the peace of sleep. That was the only thing that could take him away from the messed-up world.

"Ne, Izaya."

Izaya only closed his eyes tighter as his heartbeat sped up. Completely ignoring the blond.

"Izaya."

The raven still refused to answer. But he was quickly pulled out of his peaceful state as he was yanked a little backwards by his raven locks. Izaya hissed as he stared at the dangerous eyes of an animal above him.

"Shitty bastard, I know you don't fall alseep that fast." Shizuo growled down at the tired raven. Izaya huffed as if he was offended, and Shizuo let go of his hair. Izaya slowly moved back to his spot on the king-sized bed, but this time faced towards the blond.

"What is it?" Izaya grumbled unhappily.

Shizuo took a long drag of his cancer stick before blowing the smoke softly towards the raven. And if the ex-informant didn't have half of his nose burried into his pillow, he would probably have coughed more than he did.

"You stopped sending gangs and other throubles after me, and you're not coming to Ikebukuro anymore." Shizuo spoke calmly, not even giving Izaya a glance as he once again took another long drag.

"That's what you wanted all along, right?" Izaya adjusted his position to rest his head in his hand while he traced words into the white sheet beneath him. Words the blond would never be able to read nor understand.

"Shut up."

"Mm.."

Izaya smirked softly as he sunk back into the bed, his bruised back facing the ceiling and his cheek gently pressed into the pillow.

"Why?"

Izaya blinked for short moment. He hadn't expected the blond to ask him why. But the surprised expression quickly faded away as fast as it came. The blond still not even looking at the raven beside him.

"Who knows..." Izaya smirked lightly as he slowly crawled towards the blond. "Maybe you're boring me..."

Izaya's slender, pale fingers softly brushed along the monster's visible jawline and trailed down towards his chin. "Perhaps I've found better things to do..."

The raven tilted the blond towards him, making him stare into his own crimson orbs that shinned almost like ruby. "Or maybe I like you?" Izaya's lips ghosted over Shizuo's for a second, until the debt collector curled his fingers around the raven's throat, pulling him harshly away from him. He pinned him roughly down on the bed as he hovered above him. Izaya laughed at the abusive action as he could imagine the bruise going to take form on his pale skin tomorrow.

"Don't even say shit like that, you're not even capable of liking another person." He squeezed a little tighter, the words the raven had said repeating annoyingly in his head.

"Oh, but you're not exactly just a person either, are you?" Izaya grinned darkly at the protozoan above him. Shizuo cursed and let the raven go. He quickly pulled his bartender clothes on and left the apartment as quickly as possible, the sound of the maniac laugh belonging to Orihara Izaya haunting him until he was out of the building.

Izaya wiped a tear away from his eye at the intense laughing. If only the blond knew how much his little confession had meant.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Namie stared at his boss, feeling disgust creep up on her. She almost dropped her laptop and files.

"You don't like it?" Izaya grinned at Namie's terrirfied face as he pointed to his neck, where a dark ring had formed around it.

Izaya turned back to his work while Namie was still staring at the raven. "A personal gift from Shizu-chan. He's not much of a person who goes out and buys jewelry, since he can barely afford living in his own home with all the debt swinging around his ears. He's more the type to make his gifts himself." He grinned brokenly. Namie's disgust suddenly transformed into something more along the lines of concern. She sat by her desk, opening her work, but still keeping a close eye on her boss.

"I think you should leave that monster alone." Namie eyed the raven up and down. She could tell there were more bruises than he showed. But whenever they had their normal chases in the past, Izaya barely had a scratch when he came home.

The ex-informant smiled sadly as he folded a piece of paper in his hand. "Trust me Namie-san, I tried."

The raven-haired man admired his work as he placed the beautiful origami rose on the side of his computer screen. "I tried."

"It's getting colder every day. It probably won't be long until it begins to snow. Sadly, the snow never lasts long in the bigger cities. All there is left is grey slush on the street that eventually becomes water by the end of the day."

"I've always hated, yet loved winter as a child. I guess I haven't changed much on that point. I always felt angry over how the flowers in our garden withered away until there was nothing left. So, our garden looked like a white desert. Of course, they came back in the late spring, sometimes earlier, if the weather were warmer than usual that is. And the beautiful roses would once again rise like kings and queens."

"I'm not sure if there's still roses in our old house. It's still abandoned from what I've heard. It's an old place after all, away from the big city. I wonder how it looks now. If It's still as amazing as I remember it to be. Probably not. I'm guessing there's still holes in the unstable floor and the doors don't shut properly."

"Perhaps I should visit it sometime, just to get away from everything for a while. Wouldn't that be wonderful, ne?"

Izaya sighed. Yeah, get away from everything. Work. The city.

"Shizu-chan.."

A/N: Honestly, I'm not that satisfyed with this chapter. It was kind of written in a rush because I have lots of stuff that I need to focus on. I also have other stories I need to tend to on Wattpad that I may or may not publish on at the moment. I also had the story edited a bit by a friend because I simply don't have the time. I guess it turned out okay in the end. I hope you enjoyed it more than I did ^^ And I'll see ya next chapter!