Chapter 21 – Reunion

"Where's Izaya?" questioned the display of the phone that was nearly thrust into his face. Shizuo's answer was a growl as he tried to suppress the urge to smoke. Mumbling under his breath on how stupid he was for forgetting his cigarettes at home, he let Shinra do the explaining.

"Well, you see, my lovely Celty, it seems like we just missed him." the underground doctor said while laughing as if he had no care in the world. The Dullahan tilted her head before typing on her phone again.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "The twins took him home, so now we have to get there and pick him up." the blonde man said, his voice on the edge of frustration. "I swear, Shinra… When this is over I'll beat you up." was soon added, making the brown haired male swallow in fear.

"How about I relief you of the debt you have with me for all the times I stitched you up again?" The offer his childhood friend made, had Shizuo thinking for a bit.

"Deal." he said holding his hand towards the doctor to shake hands on it. Though, as Shinra took it, he smirked. "And I only flick you on the forehead."

The color seemingly left the betrothed man at the new addition to the deal he just made. Remembering the last time he got flicked on the forehead he already could feel the pain blossom up.

Oh, well. At least this would be better then getting beat up for it.

"So?" the lighted up display screamed for attention from the two men. "What are we going to do now? I know where the twins' apartment is, shall I go get Kuro?"

The headless woman had already shown her PDA to the others when she realized her mistake. Quickly she drew it back.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't get used to 'Kuro'. Shall I pick up Izaya?"

Her fiancé laughed. He knew how much trouble he was in, especially once this is over, but he still enjoyed playing with the cat turned informant and teasing him in every way he had gotten the chance to.

"Yes." Shinra answered. "Take Shizuo with you. I'll go home and prepare everything so we can return him to his body."

Gold-brown eyes frowned. "What do you have to prepare? I thought Celty's gonna do all the work?"

Shinra let out a shaky laugh. "Yeah, I'm just checking on his body's vitals and all. He DID gain a mild concussion before his soul was dragged out of his body and turned into a cat." Those words had Shizuo furrow his brows in anger. Not at Shinra, but at himself. Sure, it wasn't his intention, but he had actually managed to hurt Izaya during their last chase.

Gripping at his hair in anger he just hoped that Izaya won't hate him even more after finally waking up as his human-self again. He knew how crazy this might sound, but he was actually happy that the flea's hatred towards him wasn't the kind of where he would be just blatantly ignored. Sure, Izaya hated him with every fiber of his being for being the monster, both Izaya and sometimes even Shizuo himself believed he was, but he had at least the black haired man's attention.

He feared nothing more than Izaya one day stopping their dynamic and just not giving a damn about him anymore. Izaya was the only one not afraid of him. Sure, Kasuka also doesn't seem scared of him, but that's an entirely different matter. Kasuka is his little brother, he's family so him not being afraid of 'Bukuro's brawling puppet doesn't count.

Izaya not loving him back was hard enough, but bearable, at least that's what Shizuo's told himself for years now. Not being able to run after that beautiful slender figure with the shiny black locks, due to the informant starting to fear him would be the worst possible outcome.

Freezing the blonde stopped mid thought.

"Wait." he thought. "Didn't Izaya start to forget things? Didn't he… Start to lose his memories?"

His eyes widened at what he just remembered now. If the flea would just entirely forget the times they had with each other, would that be a good thing? Or worse? It could mean a new beginning… "No!" He scolded himself in his mind. "I don't want the flea to forget about me. I want him to remember me, and maybe someday… No! Just… No."

Groaning out loud he ruffled up his hair with both hands.

"I just want him to remember me. I want to confess to him and hope that this will change SOMETHING between us. Or that it at least gets back to how it always was between us after he rejects me for being a 'monster'." Having come to a conclusion the blond man nodded to himself before he turned his attention back to the couple that was with him… Only that it was only Celty and her trusty horse-bike.

"Huh? Where's glasses?" he asked the Irish fairy who immediately began to type her answer.

"He's gone ahead while you where deep in thought." stood on the screen, before Celty pulled the device back to type something new on it.

"I don't know what you were thinking about, but don't worry so much. We don't know how all this will turn out, the best action for us would be to just wait, let things happen and then think of something together. I won't let you deal with everything alone, I promise."

The fake blonde smiled. "Thank you, Celty. I appreciate it."

The courier just nodded before she made a helmet out of shadow for her friend and handed it to him.

Taking it he settled down behind her on Shooter and they were soon on their way to pick up the informant slash cat.

-o-o-o-o-

On their way home the Orihara twins had shared the duty on carrying the basket, which held a certain black furred kitten inside, with each other. They both held onto it, each with one hand as they carried it in their middle.

At the beginning Kuro had seemed calm and collected, but as soon as the traffic noise picked up the cat seemed to press himself against the basket and shivered lightly in fear. There was no need to speak out the words aloud as the twins always knew what the other thought, since they were both one mind and soul split into two bodies. They both hurried on their way home so the poor scared kitten would soon feel safe again.

They turned around the last corner on the way home, as they noticed someone standing outside their home. They stood directly under a streetlight so the twins recognized them immediately.

"Shi~zu~o~saaaaan!" Mairu sang loudly waving at the man with her free hand. "Black Biker-san!" she also greeted urban legend.

"Took you long enough to get home. We're waiting here for five minutes now!" the blonde man grumbled seemingly annoyed for whatever reason the twins couldn't comprehend.

"What's wrong? What's wrong, Shizuo-san? Why so pissed off? You finally decided to introduce us to Yuuhei-san?" Mairu started another round of hyper talking. Before she could continue saying more Celty held her PDA towards the two identical girls.

"I'm sorry for ambushing you like that, but you see the cat you picked up…" The fairy drew the phone back taking a second to think of what to write next.

"It belongs to a friend of Shizuo and he's currently looking after the little guy, but he managed to escape from the apartment so we where searching everywhere for him. That's also the reason why Shizuo's not in a good mood."

"I see." the short haired twin, Kururi said while now reaching for the basket with her free hand to hold onto, since her younger twin was about to let go.

"What?!" Mairu exclaimed in disappointment. "Awww! I wanted to play with Kuro-nii for a while." At this the bodyguard chocked on nothing while the headless woman had trouble catching her phone again as it slipped through her fingers.

The blonde was the first to find the right words or in his case, word. "What?!"

The silent twin nodded. "Iza-nii." she said as if this would explain everything. The blonde haired man's eyes met their own reflection as he glanced at the black visor of his friend's helmet. Both thinking the same thing. "Did they know?"

Before any of them could question the two youngest Oriharas, the braided haired girl spoke up again.

"Yes, Kururi is right. Kuro-nii has the same eyes as Iza-nii and the fur is the same color as big brother's hair as well, so I'm calling him Kuro-nii." The two adults relaxed again.

"Ne, Shizuo-san?" the hyper one started again. "Don't you think that Iza-nii acts more like a feisty kitten than a flea? Maybe you should call him 'Kitty' or 'Kitten'." the girl talked so fast that Shizuo wondered when she would stop to take in some much needed air.

"In case you ever confess to him you should get him a collar, he would look sooo cute and-" "WHAT?!" the blonde's outburst interrupted the girl mid-speech which made her pout.

"Its obvious." the silent one revealed, resulting in her sister wildly nodding her head. "It totally is. Well, maybe not for Iza-nii, since he's so blinded by his fake love for humans to even notice your feelings buuut it is obvious."

Sighing in defeat, Shizuo buried his blushing face in his hand. It was official now. By now he was sure that everyone in Ikebukuro knew about his attraction towards Izaya. Or at least those who knew him as more than just a hot headed dangerous beast randomly throwing things around.

If Kadota for example, would come up to him now telling him that he and his gang had a bet running on how long it would take for the Heiwajima to man-up and confess, he wouldn't be surprised anymore.

Suddenly the words Mairu had said just now registered themselves in his mind.

Izaya was too blinded by his fake love for humans to notice his feelings of true love? If this was true, than it wasn't so any longer. He had mindlessly talked about his feelings in the presence of none other than his crush himself. Sure he wasn't aware at the time, but by now Izaya knew. And again the question of what Izaya truly felt for him came up.

He groaned feeling a headache form thanks to this seemingly endless spiral of tortures thoughts that came up, disappeared and came up again, ever since he learned who Kuro really was.

Lifting his head out of his palms, he craned his head to catch sight of the huddled black lump inside the basket. The most beautiful set of brown slightly red looking eyes his gaze had ever met looked back at him.

Izaya, or was he Kuro now? … The feline just stared at him, not making any sound.

Was he back to being Izaya now? Or was Izaya lost for good now and there was only Kuro who now also held no recognition of him too? How far would this memory loss that Shinra had explained to him go?

There was only one way to find out.

-o-o-o-o-