Author's Note: I want to start by saying how much I love each and every one of you. This story has (practically) 200 reviews and 23,433 hits. Just wow, that's amazing. I'm really glad you're all enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying writing it, really. KIWI LOVES YOU ALL.

Just a little update tonight, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. This is kind of the start of the turning point, maybe, I don't really know myself. But... I look forward to your reviews as usual~ Maybe tell me what you think will happen next?

The loft was dark, surrounding Izaya Orihara in dim lighting broken only by the glow of his computer screen and the soft twinkle of the city humming to life outside of the window behind him. It was funny how much of his life was spent in the dark, he mused, bitterly, lovingly. The underworld of the city, the underbelly, filled with its gangs and its low life and beastly creatures; that was his home. He thrived there, in the dark and the dim and the damp. Funny though, that he had always shunned the light, funny, funny, it really was. He was dark and he was cold, and it was his home, lurking in the shadows and the underworld, that was where he belonged. It was comforting though, it was calming, allowed him to think without distraction, to think things clearly and seriously. He liked the dark, he really did, and after the events of that morning, Izaya had a lot to be thinking about.

He had arrived back at his Shinjuku loft that morning, barely over an hour after he and the beast had— and he hadn't left at all for the rest of the day, despite having meant to go out into the streets for work. Namie had been sat at her desk when he had torn himself through the door, and he had commanded her to leave and not to return until he said otherwise. She had been wearing that look, the one that Izaya fucking hated. She wasn't stupid, foolish yes, pathetic, even more so, but not stupid. Izaya didn't need that; Izaya didn't want to see her face. He had stood in the doorway until she had left, wearing an expression that was a fabulous combination of loathing for his very being and something that Izaya didn't like the look of, like she could see that her boss, the cold Izaya Orihara, was coming apart at the seams. Well that was just fine, he didn't like her either, and he didn't— Stupid human, stupid, stupid, stupid.

But now the sunlight had slipped away, hours ago, though Izaya hadn't moved to turn on any of the lighting his apartment had to offer, in fact he hadn't even moved from the seat at his desk. His legs were tucked up underneath him, in that same little crossed legged way that he had used to do as a child, and he could feel the droplets of water from his hair skimming down his skin every now and then. The raven locks were still wet from the last shower he had taken just a short while ago; he'd lost count of how many times he had even showered that day in some urge to make that unclean feeling go away, to make himself stop feeling so dirty, so filthy, so— Izaya hadn't bothered to dress, just tugging on some underwear and one of those old red t-shirts that he had been so fond of in the past. The showers, however many of them, had certainly cleaned his body, had made it sleek and shiny and all the rest, but it hadn't made him feel better, it hadn't rubbed away the dirt in his soul, in his head, and he could feel it, all over him, everywhere.

He wasn't used to feeling like this. He didn't like it. What was this feeling? Something that felt like guilt or shame or something like that, but no, no, he knew better than that. Izaya didn't feel guilt; he had no shame, because how could he feel either of those? He didn't feel, he couldn't, he didn't have a heart to feel things with, and there was just a hole in his chest, just a pit where nothing beat anymore. No. No. He wasn't used to feeling like this at all. Shizuo and he, they were meant to hate, there was no way that he could feel anything other than pity for him, anything other than disgust at what had happened. That was how things were meant to work, it was, and yet the pang of emotion in the depths of himself said otherwise. He had changed from the man he had been before this game, he knew that, he was shifting, morphing, evolving into someone that scared him. It was as if he was heading backwards, towards the naïve little boy he had used to be before he had met Shiki, before he had been taught that love was monstrous.

Shinozuka Heikichi. The one who had come along and changed everything. The profile of that man was open on the screen of Izaya's computer, and it had been for the entirety of the day, even when Izaya had skipped out to shower again, to scorch the non-existent dirt from his slim form and tingling skin. There was something comforting about the action, something calming about looking at the thing that had started it all. Shinozuka, ha, the man who had managed to make the great Izaya Orihara fall in love. Izaya guessed that it was obvious now, just why Shinozuka had interested him so much. He was Shizuo, and the monster had always been fascinating to Izaya, had always been the one exception to every rule. Shizuo Heiwajima, the monster of Ikebukuro, Izaya's glorified plaything. He never acted like Izaya thought, and neither had Shinozuka, it should have been obvious, and yet he had become so tangled up in talking with him that he had simply not noticed. What did that mean?

Really, what did it mean? Was it possible for him and Shizuo to get on, to not fight and poke and prod and try to kill each other? Izaya had wondered that before, because there was something about Shizuo that he had noticed even when they had been young, that they were the type of people who would either be the greatest of enemies or the most passionate of friends. The brute was stubborn, Izaya knew that, he would never consider it, and yet surely the blonde had realised the shift in their relationship after this, after that morning? Surely the oaf realised that they couldn't simply go on the way they had before? Izaya knew they couldn't, but Izaya didn't know what to make of the situation either. They'd proved they could get on, hadn't Shinozuka and Nakura loved each other? He had been himself, he had, and he knew that Shizuo didn't have it in him to pretend to be someone he wasn't. It had been him and Shizuo, talking, joking, flirting, just like they had never met all those years away. Like some kind of second chance, they had done it, proved that they could get on, they could be great, they could be—It was ridiculous, wasn't it? It was foolish to think he was considering easing up on the oaf, and yet Izaya wasn't laughing, he wasn't even smiling.

It seemed like Izaya's brain was on fire, trying to figure out what was supposed to happen, what he even felt anymore. There was no doubt that he was interested in playing with Shizuo, in finding out what made the man tick. There was no doubt that he loved Shinozuka, and that was Shizuo.

He didn't know what his next move was. He couldn't think anymore, couldn't see anything other than images and touches and hear groans and his own whines in his head. Over and over, liquid gold flashed in the front of his mind. This morning, he could still taste it, feel it all, that mouth, that skin burning against his, so supple, that gentle touch. Ha, ha. Shizuo's hands, his fingers, Izaya could still feel them, trailing and lingering like a bad ghost on his body, hot and scorching bright, just like his eyes—

There was no use in sidestepping it anymore. Izaya never had been a man to sugar-coat things. He had allowed himself to fall in love with Shizuo Heiwajima, the man he loved to hate, and the man who hated him in turn with all his worth. He had fallen spectacularly, in love, despite it all. He had. He hated that he had. Was that why he felt so dirty, so—

And yet—

Izaya had always hidden in the dark. It was comforting and it was safe. Izaya had always been drawn towards the light, just like Shinozuka, just like Shizuo's eyes. His eyes— those eyes—

Liquid gold.