Author's Note: Once again this is up later than normal; I spent most of the afternoon writing another fic which I posted a bit earlier. It's Shizaya, so you should all go and read it and let me know what you think? It's on my profile, so just click through and enjoy~.

This chapter is dedicated to 'fireexitturnright' for being the one who keeps me in line by reminding me to not get too excited and properly proof my fics... Welp. I bet you can even spot a few in here. BUH I'M SORRY. (/ω\)


'What if I were to tell you that I loved you?
Would that change nothing, Heikichi?'

Nothing, nothing, everything, nothing, nothing, that's what it would change. In all honesty, Shizuo didn't know. He didn't. Not anymore. Things were different now, weren't they? If Nakura had still been Nakura, then that would have made all the difference; that would have been the step forward that Shizuo had been wishing for his entire life, the thing that had been craving. No hidden meanings, just the knowledge that someone loved him and he was pretty sure loved too. It would have been easy then, he could have moved forward again, they both could have, they both could have taken another step together, and he could learn what love really was. But it was all wrong now. It was. Love wasn't as he knew it to be, and Nakura wasn't Nakura any more. Everything had been turned upside down, on its head, like a vending machine he'd tossed across the city.

Izaya had messed everything up, and he was still messing things up, even when Shizuo had sent him that email, telling him to stay the fuck out of his life, to stop playing, to stop doing whatever it was he was doing that was fucking with Shizuo's emotions and his feelings so much. It was as if he had taken some kind of pledge to ruin as much of Shizuo's life as he possibly could, it was if he didn't want Shizuo to be happy, to just be able to live without any trouble. Izaya just had to take Nakura away from Shizuo, didn't he? The bastard, the flea, the damn fucking louse, it was his fault, everything was always his fault. Izaya had once asked if Shizuo could believe in that last 1%, that not everything bad that happened was to do with him. How could Shizuo believe in that now? He didn't know what to believe in anymore.

There were two possible options here that Shizuo could see, just two, nice and simple. The first was that Izaya knew full well who Shinozuka really was, and that he was intentionally screwing with him. How else had he known where to send that package after all? He hadn't posted his address anywhere where Nakura could have seen it. The second was that Izaya didn't know that Shinozuka was Shizuo, but just assumed he was playing with some random man on the other end. That wasn't much better, because Shizuo doubted that if it had been someone else that they could deal with it as well as he had. He didn't see a third option. The bastard that he knew couldn't possibly be capable of love, he couldn't, he couldn't, could he? Hadn't he once thought that he couldn't love? Hadn't he once thought that he wasn't allowed to love, that there was no one out there for him to love? He was blinded by hatred for the man, and so maybe it had been under his nose all along and he had been unwilling to see that actually, Izaya Orihara knew how to feel emotion after all.

No. No. It was a ridiculous notion that he was even considering something like that. Izaya ruined lives, he came strolling in and fucked them up so heartlessly and so brilliantly that he couldn't possibly be able to feel love for anyone or anything. And yet the more he tried to squash the thoughts, the more they echoed in his head, the more the email rang over and over again, the more questions he had.

Lighting another cigarette, Shizuo settled himself in the windowsill of his apartment, cracking it open to let the smoke go out. The landlord hadn't minded his smoking habit, but it was out of politeness for any future tenants that Shizuo wanted to keep it relatively smoke free. It was getting late, but not so late that the streets were empty of people. The street lights had just about flickered on and once again the day was giving way to the twilight hours, the city blooming in this mid-point of night and day. The little box that had been waiting for him when he got home earlier sat on the desk where his computer had once been. He'd cleared away the mess that had been left in the aftermath of his fit of rage, and the components of the machine now lay outside, waiting for collection to go to the dump. It was still open, the little, harmless box, and the food and note inside of it were untouched, though Shizuo had to admit that the louse had really gone all out and got some expensive looking stuff. He stared at it as he smoked, hard, as if that would somehow provide all of the answers that he was looking for, the ones that really mattered.

What did he really know? Everything was different now. Everything.

Shizuo didn't know if Izaya knew who he was, he didn't know if Izaya knew that he was playing with Shizuo. Shizuo was beginning to think that maybe the bastard didn't know it was him, that maybe he just assumed it was some guy living in Ikebukuro, just a normal guy who had taken a shine to him. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. He wasn't sure what it meant. Izaya had a nasty habit of lying to Shizuo; telling tale tales to wind the other man up, but that didn't mean that Izaya lied to everyone. What if he were telling the truth about his feelings, what if someone really had made the information broker fall in love? What if he had done that? There had been snippets of fact that Shizuo knew to be true of Izaya's life in those emails. He knew the bastard had sisters, twins, he knew that he liked sushi, expensive stuff at that, all of those small things that he had overlooked to start with. If they were true, then what about the big things? What about that man he had mentioned? Shizuo could only think of one or two people that Izaya had ever spent enough time with to feel like that about. What about the way he felt for Shinozuka? What if Izaya Orihara had unintentionally fallen in love with him? What then? What did that even mean?

He knew just how stubborn the asshole could be. He knew that if he had really set his mind to making Shinozuka forgive him then he would go to the most extreme lengths to do so. Shizuo knew that much. That was why Shizuo had sent that email back; because he didn't want to play this game anymore, because he was telling Izaya that it was over, that he didn't want him or Nakura in his life anymore. It didn't matter if Izaya loved him, or Shinozuka, or whoever it was he assumed he was talking with. That was the flea's problem, not his. Izaya lied and he cheated and he ruined everything; it was about time he got some payback for that after everything he had done in his lifetime, and not just to Shizuo either. How many bloodstains on the pavement had been Izaya's fault? How many lives had been wrecked because of him and his smug, sickly little smirk?

The smirk, Shizuo hated that smirk, the one that promised nothing but lewd comments and twisted up Izaya's mouth in ways just as twisted as his mind. He could see it, that mouth, that tongue, he could feel it, everywhere and on him, trailing over miles of skin and down, down, down his chest towards—

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What the fuck was he thinking?

No. No. No.

Shizuo stubbed out the cigarette long before it was near the end, unable to steady the shaking in his fingers for long enough to continue smoking it. This was ridiculous, the whole thing was ridiculous. It didn't change a thing if the flea had fallen in love with him, or with someone else. It was nothing. Nothing. It meant nothing. You can't suddenly love someone you've always hated, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't.

This was all just Izaya's game, wasn't it? Shizuo thinking and feeling this way was just playing right into his hands. Shizuo hated it, and yet he couldn't shake the feelings, he couldn't shake the thoughts and the questions and those god damn fucking mental images. It was too much, it was all too confusing, and he didn't know what to make of it. He hadn't replied to the email from Nakura, Izaya, him, and honestly he didn't intend to. Ever. That would be giving him what he wanted, that would be giving in, and yet—

Shizuo missed Nakura. Not Izaya, not the flea, but Nakura. His Nakura.

Fuck. This was all so— fuck.

What if Izaya knew that Shizuo was Shinozuka, and what if his feelings were real? Shizuo wasn't prepared for that outcome. Ridiculous. It meant nothing, it would change nothing. If that were true, it didn't mean that Shizuo would suddenly forget that he loathed the man and jump into his arms for hot sex and cuddles on the sofa. But, he had to know, didn't he? He needed to know whether or not this was a game devised for him or for someone else, he needed to know whether Izaya was lying or if he really had started to fall like Shizuo had for Nakura, for the man who didn't exist. Maybe it was morbid curiosity, but he needed to know. If Izaya had started to fall, then it meant something, it did. Shizuo just didn't know what yet.

He didn't move from the windowsill, even after stubbing out his cigarette and feeling the tingle in his legs from where they had started to fall asleep, but he couldn't stop staring at the box on the desk. What did it mean? A gesture like that had to mean something, it had to mean that Izaya had at least felt something for the man he thought he was playing with, because he knew the flea, he did. He knew that Izaya's attention span was akin to a child's, and that this was branching out, even for him. He knew that he never went this far or made this much effort unless he had something to gain or it was to annoy Shizuo. That left two options. The same two options as before, and yet slightly different, because now Shizuo had started to think that maybe, maybe, maybe Izaya wasn't as emotionless as he thought. Izaya knew that it was Shizuo on the other end or Izaya really had fallen in love with someone. Shizuo had to know which it was. Ridiculous. It was all so—

He hated Izaya, and Izaya hated him. That was how it went. They didn't like each other, let alone love one another. Fucking— this was just— And yet Shizuo knew that he had fallen for Nakura, and that Nakura was Izaya, and logic followed that this meant that he loved—

He had so many questions, and so few answers and he needed them in order to— to do what? He didn't even know himself. He didn't know what he would do when he got them. Would he just forget the whole thing and go back to how he had been living before? Would he confront the bastard and call him out on the game and beat him to a bloody pulp for once? Or was there a third road that was open for him that he didn't want to see just yet. He had fallen for Nakura, and Nakura had fallen for Shinozuka, but that— that didn't mean that he had fallen for Izaya or that Shizuo had fallen for him. No. It didn't mean that. Izaya didn't even know it was him, and if he did— if he did then this was just a game. No. No. Izaya and Shizuo couldn't fall in love, they just couldn't. How can someone fall in love with the person that they hate? That was against the rules.

It was getting late indeed, and Shizuo knew that he had work the next morning, but he couldn't sleep with these thoughts in his head. Pushing himself away from the windowsill, he grabbed his apartment key and headed out through the door. It creaked slightly as he shut it, a sign it needed some oiling or maybe for him to stop shutting it quite as violently as he did. He needed answers, and there was only one place that he was going to get them, especially at this late hour. There were only a handful of people who knew Izaya to the extent that he needed right then after all. One of them was himself, the other was Shinra and the third—

Shiki.