Shizuo likes cooking.

This is convenient, given that he's been stuck with doing all the meal preparation in the absolute absence of a willingness on Izaya's part to do anything more complicated than purchase snacks from the convenience store by way of sustenance. Shizuo isn't sure what Izaya ate before they became partners, and he's too concerned about the answer he's likely to get to put voice to the inquiry. It doesn't matter, really; what matters is that they're living together now, and Shizuo has access to a kitchen significantly larger than the one in his first tiny studio apartment, and that makes the nightly task of preparing something for dinner more pleasant than otherwise. It's soothing to chop vegetables and swing the wooden spoon in slow arcs through a pot of bubbling stew; Shizuo doesn't have to think at all, can let his mind wander and his thoughts hum over tuneless melodies from some distant memory of music as he goes through the basic steps to make their evening meal.

Izaya doesn't help. He's never offered, and Shizuo never asks; after their first mission together, he's unwilling to ask for help he doesn't absolutely need, and besides Izaya's disinclination to do anything more complex than unwrap prepackaged meals suggests a lack of competence in the kitchen that Shizuo doesn't want to have to work around. If he ever asked to help Shizuo would be willing to hand off the mundane task of chopping carrots or dicing onions to him; but he doesn't, and that leaves Shizuo free to work through the familiar steps without any interruption to the pattern he learned to follow when cooking just for himself. Izaya is out of his room, tonight; Shizuo isn't sure if it's the smell of the stew cooking that has urged him from behind the weight of his closed door, or maybe some well-hidden desire for silent companionship, but in either case he's been sitting on the couch for almost an hour by the time the stew is done, his back to the kitchen and his head ducked down over what Shizuo assumes is the screen of his cell phone. Shizuo has glanced up at him occasionally, at semi-regular intervals during the steady pace of his work over the counter; but Izaya has never looked up at him, and all Shizuo can see of the other is the hunch of his shoulders and the dark of his hair at the back of his neck, and in the end he had given up entirely on figuring out what Izaya was doing and focused on the steady process of cooking instead. It's almost a quarter of an hour later that he turns the burner off, the click of the dial sounding as clearly as a bell in the quiet of the apartment, and says "Dinner's ready" without turning around to look to Izaya on the couch.

His statement isn't quite true. The stew might be done cooking, technically, but it still takes a few minutes to collect a pair of bowls from the cabinet and serve ladlefuls of the thick stew into them. By the time Shizuo is bringing them over to the table it's been more than enough time for Izaya to finish whatever he's doing and come over; but there's no one at the table, and no sign that the other has moved at all from where he's sitting at the couch, and Shizuo's frown goes wholly unnoticed as he sets the bowls down with more force than is strictly necessary.

"Izaya." His voice is harder, now, he can feel the edge of it forming in the back of his throat. "Come and eat."

"I'm not hungry," Izaya says without lifting his gaze from his phone to see the way Shizuo is watching him. "I'll get something later."

"No you won't," Shizuo says, certainty making his words come sharp with judgment. "You never bother to get anything to eat on your own." He leaves the bowls where they sit at the table to stride across to the living room; Izaya still doesn't look up from his screen, but there's tension forming in his shoulders, strain settling in against his spine to make the set of his body look like he's trying to form a wall to stand against whatever force Shizuo can effect.

Shizuo ignores it. "You can't skip meals," he informs the dark of Izaya's hair. "It's bad for you, you're already skinnier than you should be."

"What are you, my mother?" Izaya says without lifting his head.

"No," Shizuo says. "I'm your meister." Izaya does look up then, his head coming up as his eyes go wide; Shizuo holds the other's gaze without flinching, frowning intensity to add weight to his words. "You're meant to be support I can rely on in a fight. If you don't eat I can't depend on you, and I can't go out on missions without a weapon I can count on."

Izaya's lashes flicker, his throat works on some sound left unvoiced. His fingers tighten against his phone, but he doesn't look away; there's something strange behind his eyes, a tension almost like pain caught behind the red tinge coloring the dark of his gaze.

"First sleeping, now eating," he says, the words managing only the barest suggestion of teasing in his voice. "What next, Shizu-chan, are you going to keep me on a leash to make sure I don't run off and hurt myself?"

"If I have to," Shizuo says, and Izaya's lashes dip again, his eyebrows skipping up into momentary surprise. "Come and eat dinner."

Izaya's jaw shifts, like he's thinking about setting it into stubbornness; but then he ducks his head, and presses the button to lock his phone, and says "Yes, meister" with mocking insincerity drawling in his throat.

Shizuo doesn't care. Izaya can make a taunt of his obedience all he wants; what matters is that he's setting his phone aside, and getting up to come to the table and eat something other than coffee and rolls for one meal of the day. Shizuo trails him, ready to resist if Izaya picks at his food and then leaves; but Izaya takes one desultory bite, and then another with somewhat more enthusiasm, and by the time Shizuo is taking his seat at the other end of the table Izaya is leaning in over his bowl and focusing on eating with the same attention he had turned on his phone screen a moment before. It's not quite the same as praise, and it's not quite surrender to the logic of Shizuo's demand; but Izaya gets up for a second serving while Shizuo is still working on his first, and brings it back to the table instead of retreating to the couch or his bedroom, and when Shizuo glances at the other Izaya is working his way through his meal with a focus that is better than coherent compliments would be. It's enough to make Shizuo smile before he ducks his head and turns his attention to his own meal, and he's still smiling when Izaya pushes back from the table and gets up to set his bowl in the sink before returning to whatever he was originally doing on the couch. Shizuo handles the cleanup as well as the cooking, and with just as much complete disregard from his weapon partner; but he's still smiling as he sets aside the last of the dishes to dry and reaches for a towel to wipe his hands clean.

It might be minimal improvement, but he's sure the next time he tells Izaya to take care of himself he won't have to repeat the command.