Author's Note: I'M DYING! DYING OF BOTH PAIN AND EXCITEMENT! Cramps suck and suddenly hit me like a freight train, but aside from that, this weekend was absolutely WONDERFUL. I did a photo shoot for my new Izaya cosplay. I had changed almost everything about it. New shirt. New jeans. New coat. Even new hair as opposed to my last shoots. It was SO fun. But also bittersweet since my friend, who took the pictures, is leaving for school in a week. He did an amazing job just as he always does, though. So many good shots. Hardly a picture I don't like. One of my other friends came with us and we got some great shots of her and she took some pretty amazing pictures as well.

Oh... Also! I've been meaning to get to this for a while, but a lot of people have asked me what the italicized letters at the end (and sometimes beginning) of chapters are. They're song lyrics. If you want to know who they're by, copy and paste the lyrics into your search engine of choice, or wait until the end when I post the list of songs I have. I say this because it really is difficult to message a bunch of people with different songs when most of the time I don't remember what song is in whichever chapter you're curious about.

SO.

I have school in a few hours and I need to sleep. I'll shut up and let you enjoy this update in whatever way you see fit.

THANK YOU!

PS- I've been trying really hard for THREE days to update this, but I continuously fall asleep. |:

I helped you out of yourself, and right back in.

"I know Shinra said I should eat healthy, but…"

Staring at the colorful assortment of ingredients laid out before me, I absentmindedly spun the kitchen knife around my fingertips out of habit. When it came to a blade, flipping them in my hands had a way of helping me gather thoughts. It was my method of focus. I did what came naturally to me, I suppose.

"Gah!" Shizuo grumbled, as I rolled the sharp edge over my knuckles. "Will you stop doing that?"

"Huh? Shit!" I glanced up, losing what I thought was becoming a breakthrough.

The chair shrieked as he was on high alert to put out any fires or clean up any blood… specifically my fires, and my blood.

"Sit down!" I commanded. "I'm fine!"

"Ugh. You're making me nervous."

Throwing the knife down on the cutting board, I spun around, shooting him a glare. "What do you think I'm going to do? Stab myself in the chest with you five feet away?"

"No! I just don't want you to hurt yourself!"

"Same difference." I narrowed my eyes, pushed up my sleeves, and readjusted my glasses before turning back to my masterpiece in progress.

Two days prior, I had left Shinra's apartment with a few more goals set for myself. The first was that I agreed to start eating again. I was ill because I made myself ill. I could eat if I made myself eat. Second, I wanted energy. Having figured that a large portion of my melancholy was derived from too much sleep, and too little food, changing my habits for the sake of feeling my body return to normal was a good step. Third, I wasn't going to be so difficult. Shizuo didn't need my stubbornness. Frankly, I didn't either. Included in that, I was doing my best to take his advice. As much as I hated who I had become, I wasn't the only one in the world hurting. I wasn't the only one in our rocky relationship hurting…

The third was the most difficult, and taking the longest to master. My second goal was gradual; not in desperate need of attention. As for the first, I had spent the last couple days following Shinra's "advice" for healthy eating. His list of vegetables and meats containing specific types of nutrients was good enough as a rough guideline. However, in order to rule my own life, I had to play by my own set of rules. There was only so much brown rice my stomach could handle.

"Y'know, you really don't have to go all out like this," Shizuo stated.

"It's not that I have to," I shrugged. "I want to. Then again…"

"What?"

"I sort of rushed in without a plan." I scratched my head. "Now, I don't know what to make."

"It doesn't matter."

"No?"

"It'll be good. You know what you're doing."

"Hm… Says the man who just pissed himself over a lazy knife trick."

Keeping my back turned to him, I hid the blended expression of bewilderment and curiosity crashing into a roll of the eyes. Since I had returned, he was being incredibly affectionate, to the point where I had nearly forgotten what the Shizu-chan I was familiar with was like. Slightly uncomfortable by his change in attitude, I kept myself on high alert. We still hadn't discussed the argument, which, to be honest, felt more and more tempting to abruptly start a conversation about.

"There are only eight days left. What if I decide I love your cooking and I can't survive without it?"

"Ha!" I was immediately a bit too sarcastic. "If that's the case you'll have to come to Shinjuku."

"Seriously? You wouldn't even consider staying here?" His voice was stricken by disappointment.

"Shizu-chan, you realize I live where I work?"

"Yeah," he grumbled, "You also live with that damn woman. She reminds me of a snake."

"Namie? Perhaps a garden snake, ne? She's harmless." Yet, something about her name provided me with a foul taste in my mouth. "OH! I GOT IT!"

"Eh?"

"Okonomiyaki," I grinned, digging around in the pantry for flour, feeling victorious when I found it buried in the back behind cups of ramen.

"You know how to make it?"

"I'm Orihara Izaya," I leered, feeling hints of a lost confidence returning to me. "What don't I know?"

Proud of my culinary skills, I twirled the knife a few more times, and got started on the batter. As I invested myself in my cooking, I tried to piece myself together. Shizuo's attitude was putting me in an uncomfortably - if not a bit sarcastic - good mood while I did my very best not to think about myself. I needed a change, though I never expected passing out after a fight would really trigger a wake-up call. I could sense a dramatic change on the horizon.

"Hey, Shizu-chan," I grabbed his attention as I poured the thick mix onto a hot teppan. "Come here and tell me what you want on this."

Doing as told, he towered over my shoulder, examining his options. "Bacon."

"That's it?" I crinkled my eyebrows.

Trapping me between his arms as he so often did, Shizuo pushed himself into my back. His breath was hot across my neck, awakening goose bumps on my arms. "Hmm. Cheese too."

"Uh…" I lost myself to his heart beating into my upper back, directly behind my own heart.

He buried his face in my neck, sending his warm exhales over my collarbone and down my v-cut shirt. I hated loving how being so close felt so good, leaving me to momentarily wonder if the old Orihara Izaya was seeping through the cracks of the new me. I couldn't hate Shizuo anymore. But I could hate the feelings he instilled.

"And green onions," he added, reaching his hand over mine to add them to the grilling mix. My body froze as his dragged over mine. We were so close, with nothing but a few thin layers of clothing separating us, that it burned my skin to feel his body traveling over mine. "For an extra kick."

My breath hitched. Shizuo placed his hands on my hips, the one still bandaged from punching the wall, and pressed himself hard into my torso. I could feel the beginnings of sexual deviance rising with every breath to swirl past my ear. Predatory, wanton dominance was slowly awakening within him. As much as I wanted to surrender myself, right then and there, a burning sensation in my chest told me to be wary. I didn't feel capable of leaping into anything just yet. Now wasn't the time.

"Mmm. Smells good," he inhaled as I flipped our dinner to cook the other side. However, I had a strange voice in the back of my head telling me that he wasn't commenting on the food.

"Yeah..." I muttered, rolling my shoulders to signify my need for space.

Shizuo backed away, and I shook off the goose bumps left behind by his touch.

"What's wrong?" he queried, sounding injured.

"Nothing," I took the direction of a half-lie. "I don't want to get distracted, or I'll mess up."

I must have seemed so cold, not turning around to give him a reassuring smile. I really couldn't help it. The sweet gestures were nice. I wanted them. But to accept them without earning an apology made them feel more undeserved than they already were.

"I hate it when you bullshit me, Flea," he confessed, slumping back into his seat at the table.

"It's not really a lie," I shrugged. "I feel fine for the most part."

"Are you thinking about 'it' again? "

That's right. We were trying to fall in the habit of calling my suicidal tendencies 'it' because the actual words put us in a darker place than we wanted to be. Both Shizuo and I agreed that the simple, two-letter word made a bleak situation feel slightly more hopeful. Terminology, such as "suicide, "offing," and "death," had a way of sending me into a melancholy daze which kept me in bed for an extra few hours. Sleep was no longer qualified to be my safety net.

I hung my head, breathing heavily. "How many times have we been over this? Always."

"Has it gotten any better?"

My lips curled into a tiny smile. "Yes."

"Then what is it that has you acting so strangely tonight? Am I bothering you?"

Checking the underside of the Okonomiyaki, I decided they were done and scooped them onto individual plates as I considered the best way to begin a past due conversation with my... whatever Shizuo was to me.

"No, that's not it," I told him, balancing the two plates in one hand while I fished through the refrigerator for the right alcohol to calm my spazzing nerves. I could feel his eyes all over me.

He caught me by the eyes as I emerged from the depths of the cold metal box with two beer bottles in my hand. "Then what is it? And you shouldn't be drinking if you still have those thoughts."

"Damn, Shizu-chan. If I had known you were as talkative as Shinra, I never would have agreed to this."

"Stop trying to change the subject. I hate that too."

"Ugh. It's a casual drink. And I've learned my lesson with self-medicating."

"What does that even mean?"

Without breaking eye-contact, I set both plates on the table and took a seat adjacent from him. There was no way I was straying into that specific conversation yet. I concealed it, choosing the now-or-never route to discuss our own incident. "It isn't that I don't want you... because I do."

"Get to the point."

I could sense his impatient irritation as I attempted to drag out the topic. He was taking my rejection personally this time, finding it difficult to equate it to my personal suffering. In all fairness, this was a difficult conversation that I was blindly walking into. Who could foresee the end results? For all I knew, I was leading us into a trap worse than the last one.

Fearing that hiding from him would only give way to another hurtful argument, I took a decent swig of liquid courage, and confessed. "I'm uncomfortable pretending that our fight never happened."

"We're pretending that none of them ever happened."

"I know."

"So what's your point?"

"Think about it, Shizuo." My frown deepened. "This most recent one is different. You know that."

Dropping the magnetic pull that kept our gaze locked on one another, Shizuo's nervous habit of looking down. Awkward uncertainty flooded the scene. "I'm sorry... I know."

"I don't want to avoid it. It wasn't one of our old, violent rendezvous."

"And if it was...?'

"You wouldn't have stopped yourself from hitting me... And it wouldn't have hurt as much as the things you said."

"I have no desire to hit you, Izaya. We both messed up... I was pissed off that you didn't show up, but I didn't stop to think that you'd be uncomfortable. There's no point in staying bitter when we have to take our own share of the blame."

"I hid from you, though... I was so concerned with everybody else that I took the one thing - person - that really mattered and stomped your good will into the dirt. I'm sorry… Shizu-chan… I'm sorry…"

"Iz…"

"I'm not ready… I'm not ready." I repeated, stabbing my meal with resentment as I imagined the plate of Okonomiyaki to be my own reflection. "For all I know, I'll be dead in two weeks. I don't want to fall into something like that… And even if I did know what the future holds… If I'm going down, I'm doing it alone. You're not coming with me."

"You're going to have to elaborate."

"Do you think this city would let us survive if they knew what goes on behind closed doors?"

Shizuo was silent for a long while as I waited for a response. "No…" he solemnly answered when the apprehension was almost too much to handle.

"I don't either…"

"But if you were even half of who you used to be, we would be too strong for the city to take us down."

"That is only wishful thinking…"

"Our street fights alone do more damage than we could do if this was made public. We're infamous."

"You don't see it, Shizuo. If anyone had seen us, in my condition, your strength doesn't matter. Humans don't need muscle to win. A good rumor will do just fine. I don't want to put that on you if I may not last."

"Stop talking like you'll be dead tomorrow…" He pleaded, closing his eyes to chase the thought from his mind.

"I'm not. But I can't promise that I'll be here either."

"I shouldn't have pushed you the way I did. It was wrong. Even though I don't think this city stands a chance against us, I never thought about the consequences of taking our relationship beyond a safe haven. We think on opposite sides of a spectrum. And I'll admit it… I said the worst compilation of words I've ever said to anyone..."

"I des-"

"Don't," he cut me off. "Don't say you deserved them. You don't. At all. If anyone should be sorry for what happened, it's me. You did as I should have expected you to."

"Tch... that doesn't make me feel less guilty..."

"You and I live by instinct. Yours told you to run away…"

"Right now, I'm banking on you being the one to keep me from running," I growled, angry at myself for how pathetic I felt.

"And why do you think you need me."

"Don't play therapist, Shizu-chan. You know why." Somehow, I managed to keep the shiver running up my spine hidden from the brute as the answer swam in circles inside my head. Because you're the only reason I have to stay tied to this world…

"Then let's settle on both of us being sorry for the whole thing, learn from it, and hope it never happens again."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. Who do you think you're talking to?"

"What does that mean?" A devilish smirk spread across his lips.

"If we stay like this, there are going to be a lot more fights than just that one."

"You think so?"

"Probably," I gestured.

"I don't care."

"No?"

"I told you, didn't I? We're going to screw up. We are screwed up."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"I'm not gonna dwell on it... because now I know what it's like to be without you... and it's really fucking difficult to sleep."