Author's Note: Omg. I'm so sorry. On top of school eating me alive, I am the most easily distracted person. Uuuuugh. Everything is a distraction!

Thank you for sticking with me and enjoying this for a 3rd time, or a first!

What made Shizuo and I hate each other for so long seemed so irrelevant in the face of the new questions that plagued my thoughts. Rather than figuring out the past, I wanted to know the present. And fuck the future, because thinking too far ahead always results in more stress than a person needs to be burdened by. Looking at him, the past was gone. I wanted to know… What turned us into this…?

I thought about it over and over, constantly keeping it alive in my thoughts, because it usually dragged my mind away from thoughts of death.

Once we began to fall, we only continued to gain speed.

As neither of us could have predicted, our mixed emotions were turning into something purely uncontrollable, with every intention of turning us inside out. How unfair… We didn't even have the chance to stand our ground with a firm "no" as an answer to a question nobody ever bothered to ask us. We just fell into it, equipped with weak hearts rather than clear minds.

Two weeks was all it took to get him to say he loved me… but I never asked for love. I was completely willing to throw myself away before he rode in on his white horse. Now… I was standing at the fork in the road, wondering which path would be the better choice.

"Five days left, y'know," said Shizuo, walking out of the bathroom, shirtless with a towel draped around his shoulders and small beads of water clinging to his smooth skin and golden hair.

"Already?" I asked, glancing up from my phone just long enough for his sultry image to sink in.

For reasons unknown, I had spent the last hour scrolling through and separating important emails and text messages from more mediocre notes. Shizuo was opposed to the idea of my return to work; however, even if I planned to leave my job behind, I was still drawn by my curious nature to the desires of humans seeking out information. As awful as I was, I expressed no desire to change careers. If love conquered death, I had decided information would always be the business to keep me connected to my obsession. Maybe I wouldn't pit humans against each other as I had once done, but I was unwilling to entirely let them go.

"Yeah…"

"It hardly seems real. Twenty-five days…"

"I know. Today went by too fast."

I flipped my phone shut with a snap. My eyes traveled beyond the window, to the image of the sun casting an orangey hue over the city as the day faded into dusk. Our day had actually been a simple one. Shizuo woke up late for work, skipping it all together.

We ended up involving ourselves in a serious round of Persona 3 and noodle cups until five o'clock; living like teens who just didn't give a fuck. When we had reached the hierophant boss during the third full moon, Shizuo began to lose his temper with the video game. He was a shitty gamer, but I didn't care. I left him with his grudge against the boss to take a shower, not expecting him to join me soon after.

"Heh… Haven't they all?" I replied, breaking out of my overview of the day.

"No… just the good ones."

"You realize there have been very few good days for us, Shizu-chan?"

"You didn't enjoy today?" he asked, worry coating his voice.

When I didn't answer, he sat on the coffee table, directly in front of me. Sad eyes reflected back and forth. I didn't want this to end, yet at the same time, I couldn't wait to get out… to have freedom again. I wanted to return to the life where I made my own decisions, uninhibited by the desires of others. If I was going to be in a relationship with Shizuo, it would be because I wanted to without our living conditions affecting the decisions made. We couldn't go on like this forever. I had given into him so many times just by that all too dominating look, and I didn't want to be dominated.

Shizuo was desperate to hold on to me, even if I couldn't see what he was seeing. Whatever feelings I had towards him were hazy, as if shrouded by an uncertain fog; that fog being my own depravity beget by suicidal predispositions.

"Do you still wanna die?" he asked me, breaking the usual magnetic pull in our eyes.

Exasperated, I slid off of the couch, unceremoniously making myself comfortable by resting my head in his lap and coiling my arms around his leg.

"The desire hasn't faltered…" I told him.

"What about me?"

Cringing toward the agony in his voice, I tightened my grip on his leg. The silent response was enough for him to feel my ambiguity.

"I see…"

"We still have five days…" I breathed. "Don't give up on me yet."

"I'm not," he assured me, dragging his long, lithe fingers through my hair. "I may even be more hopeful…"

"Ha… Sure…" I jeered. "Don't be delusional Shizu-chan."

He grumbled, discontented by my rejection. "Shut up, Izaya."

Forcing a smile, I muttered, "Sorry…"

"Can't I keep you here? I don't want this month to end if you're just gonns go home to die…"

Sitting up, I shot him a look, throwing his hand away from me. "You don't know that I will!"

"I can't trust that you won't," he remained in his morose calm. "If you kill yourself all of this will have been a waste. I'll have failed you."

"Is that my reason for today?" I huffed, for lack of anything better to say.

"Yes," he shot, angrily reaching for the cigarettes sitting beside him on the table.

"At the rate you light those things, you could join me soon."

"Not soon enough," he growled before taking a long drag. "I don't want you to go unless I know you'll be okay… Unless I know…"

I waited impatiently for him to finish his sentence, until it was clear that Shizuo wasn't sure what he wanted to say - or how to say it.

"Why do you love me?" I inquired, instantly sensing the strain between us triple.

"Iz…" he groaned.

"How can I be sure of my feelings for you - how will I know they outweigh the resentment towards myself - if you don't know why you feel this way? You can't love me because I'm ill. Illnesses get better. What would you do then?"

With the cigarette hanging from his soft lips, Shizuo buried his face in his hands. It was like asking an astronaut why the planets rotate around the sun; not the scientific answer - but the actual reason… the purpose for which some things happen the way they do. Had my mind been in the right place, I would have realized that it was a ridiculous question to ask. Reasons were tricky business. As an informant, I should have known that without thinking. Humans were always after justifications for actions and convictions, no matter how farfetched they seemed.

Similar to an internet search engine, I was the worst - always having to know everything about anyone. Years of collecting information on both strangers and my own relationships, the one person I knew more about than anything else in this world, was Heiwajima Shizuo. Not only did I know every bit of gen I could dig up, I never sold any. As I was ultimately a voracious person when it came down to the facts. With Shizuo keeping my highest interest, there was never appeal in giving him away. Those details belonged to me alone.

Alas, for all I knew of him, whether gained by experience or paid for through social links, twenty-five days of living together couldn't tell me why he loved me after years of malevolence flitting through our bloodstreams as if charged by electrical currents.

"Why shouldn't I?" he finally answered, revealing to me bloodshot eyes from a weak attempt to fend off tears.

Knowing my heavy deprivation weighed him down, I never considered the idea that Shizuo was stifling tears of his own. He had never cried, as a look of painful angst usually painted his face. I didn't even know he had tears. Damn it. I hated myself more and more each time I recognized how blind I can be. While they weren't much in the way of crying, they were still clear in divulging the judgments in his own mind. I needed to look more often. I needed to see.

In the meantime, Shizuo's question warranted a legitimate response.

"Don't be an idiot," I recoiled. "You have zero reason to care about me."

"No," he shook his head, rubbing the salty tears out of his eyes, "I have every reason to care. I've always cared… about where you are, what you're doing, and what approach you'll take to ruin my day…"

"Essentially, it's the way you care about me that changed. Is that right?"

"I know… it sounds so wrong."

I smirked. "Not wrong… just stupid. I used to spend so much time hiding in the shadows to hide from you, but you always found me."

"That's because you started getting predictable."

"So why? What turned loathing into love?"

"It sounds more simple than it is… but… I realized that if you died, I'd have nothing left to live for."

"Shizu-chan?" I stared desperately into his eyes, wordlessly telling him that he was insane.

"Seriously… Why hate a person who defines me?"

"I… define you?"

He shrugged. "Yeah… more or less."

"You're right," I smirked, "It is easier said than understood… even for me…"

"After so many years of being my main target, how could I lose you now? You make up a good seventy-five percent of my life. You're a constant for me. We've been at each other's throats for so long, trying to destroy each other, that we never thought about what we'd do if one of us were to die."

"Heh… I have."

Shizuo pulled back a bit. "Oh?"

"I always thought, if you died, I'd rule this city… I'd be untouchable without you to stand in my way."

"Do you still think that way?" He was incredulous.

"No," I shook my head. "How could I, when I can't even stand up on my own half the time?"

"Point taken…"

"Hm…"

"Do you get it now, Iz?" he wondered, hopeful. "After that sort of exposé, I don't really get to hate you."

"I think you're the only one."

"Damn it. How many times do you have to say that? It's not true. What about your sisters? And everyone who has helped you over the past month? You can't honestly say nobody cares after all of us have been here for you…"

"I hate it when you're smart," I mumbled for the billionth time.

For the first time in months, he had given me something that actually made sense to me. He had given me rationalizations in a way I never envisioned possible from him… him… of all people. Of all of the truths I'd denied, I could never turn away from Shizuo's. Not an immoral cell existed in his body, while I was a crooked being, made up of twists and lies. Condemned by my own wickedness left me with no other alternative than to take in his affirmation with credence. When I was no longer able to distinguish my own truths from my own lies, he had come through.

Is it any surprise that you feel so overrun?

When all this time you had no one to tell you how to love?

Do you think it's unwise to go and break yourself on this one?

When all this time you didn't know love.