Next chapter! Yay! I'm kind of almost done with this story, probably two more chapters. I'm not sure yet. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it! I'm going to the doctor all this week, so if I don't update at the usual times that I do then I'm really sorry! And sorry if they're a lot of mistakes or what not I've been pretty sick lately.
Suffocating…I'm suffocating from this stupid silence again. It's been a couple hours now and I can't sit still. I keep pacing and I'm sure it's annoying Celty by now. She's calmly sitting on the couch, but I know in her mind (wherever that may be) is on Izaya right now. She wants to look less worried for me, but I can tell by the way she's not making too many movements that she's really worried.
[Relax Shizuo. It'll be okay. Izaya's strong. He'll pull through.]
"And what if he does? What am I gonna do?" I say loudly then hold my head in frustration. "…I can't picture myself without him…He's all I have left…"
[What do you mean?]
"Don't take it the wrong way, but everything else in my life can't compare to Izaya. I appreciate it whenever you and Shinra help me and hang around me. All the friends I do have are great, but they're just friends…Izaya and I have a special bond that doesn't have any of those boundaries that friends have. I can be intimate with him because I'm already that comfortable around him…And that's what lovers do…"
[Are you saying what I think you're saying?]
"Yeah…I want to get back together with him. I don't know when I became this fucking stupid…"
[You're not stupid, Shizuo. Love can be all kinds of things but, in the end, there's something sacred or rewarding with falling in love even if things don't turn out well. Just experiencing the feeling is a prize in itself.]
"I thought you said you didn't want to say anything cliché." I say with an annoyed expression.
[I never said that; it must have been a typo.] I glare at her and sigh.
"You and Shinra must be doing well otherwise you wouldn't say all that romantic crap."
[It isn't crap, Shizuo. It's beautiful and amazing.]
"And it makes you freaking bipolar." I say simply. "I'm not saying I don't want to be in love, but it just be less troublesome if I wasn't in love to begin with…I just feel pain all the time…I'm in pain right now thinking I might lose him."
Suddenly Shinra emerges from the lab room with a grin plastered on his face which irritates me slightly considering the serious situation. I walk over to him and then look over to the room where I had put Izaya with the utmost care. I remember that before I left the room a couple hours earlier I had kissed his hand. I don't know where he got those rings and what significance they carry, but I really want to see him wearing another kind of ring.
"Is he alright?"
"Yeah, he's doing much better. Turns out the bullet didn't penetrate through and get stuck somewhere in his head. It barely nicked him, but he's still unconscious since he hit the ground pretty bad; that's why there was far more blood loss."
"He hit his head too?"
"Yes, apparently when he fell, but don't worry, I don't think he suffered any head trauma and I'm pretty sure he'll be able to tell us his name when he wakes up." Shinra says as he sighs and sits on the couch next to Celty. I look to the door and clench my fists nervously. "You can go in and see him. I bet he really wants the first person he sees to be you." Shinra teases with a short chuckle. I look over to him and throw him a glare. I hesitate for a moment and then enter the room slowly.
"Izaya…" I say as I approach him carefully. He's still unconscious, but he looks so peaceful as if he were just sleeping. I pull up a chair and listen to the beeping of the monitor that's recording his heart beats. I fucking hate the machine. I clench my fists in an attempt to refrain myself from smashing it to pieces. It's not the beeping that annoys me (though it kind of does), it's the unnatural, inhuman noise it's making, the sound that tries to mimic the sound of the human heart. I rather listen to the actual thing.
When Izaya used to sit in my lap he used to like to listen to my heartbeat. I always told him it was creepy, but he insisted it was soothing to his ears.
"In my opinion, it's romantic to listen to your lover's heartbeat. It makes me happy when I hear that it's beating faster because I'm with you."
He always said that. He liked to make me blush like a fucking dork. Before Izaya and I were together, I don't remember a time when I was that weak in the knees. After we got together, everything was like spring was always in the air and I was always blushing because I was still young and foolish.
But right now, here I am, sitting next to my first love. Even if he always made me act like a complete dork when I was around him, I don't think that I minded all that much. It made me happy. It still makes me happy when I'm around him.
Damn, I just realized that it's been quite a long time since I've had a smoke. How could I forget that habit? I hadn't even noticed the withdrawal symptoms, if I even went through them. I really haven't noticed much since Izaya came back.
I grab hold of his hand and rub his knuckles with my thumb. I lower my head and kiss his hand again, this time I keep his hand close to my lips and then move it to my cheek to feel his temperature. His hands are warm at least. It comforts me to know that his body is in a state of balance as usual. I then move my hand over to his forehead and remove strands of his black hair out of his face. His hair is just as soft as I remember it being whenever I ran my fingers through it.
I stand up and lean over him carefully and cup his cheek in my hand. My thumb rubs his cheek slowly as I look at his peaceful face. I then lower my head and kiss his lips softly. The sensation sparks forgotten feelings in me that I tried to bury out of anger after he had left. His lips are so soft and warm, bringing me back to a time when we were just kids; Izaya being the more curious one to plant a kiss on my lips. My first kiss, my first crush, my first love…Izaya's been all of those.
I clench my hands in frustration as I blame myself for what has happened. If I just accepted my feelings at the beginning, this never would have happened.
Suddenly I get a text from some unknown number.
Shizuo Heiwajima, you've got some guts. I can tell you that. Let's not beat around the bush, how about you just hand over our little ace in the hole, eh?
I grit my teeth and start typing my response in anger.
Like hell I would do that! Fuck off!
Well, you can't keep him forever. He'll have to come crawling back. He knows he has a contract with us and he knows what we're capable of. We'll be waiting for Izaya. If he's not in our office by midnight tonight they're gonna be consequences.
I close my phone and try to think of way to get Izaya out of this mess. I don't want to lose him and I'm positive that if I allow for Izaya to escape and go back, they're definitely going to punish him. They're probably gonna continue with what they were going to do when they had him surrounded in that alley hours ago. I'm not gonna let that happen. Those guys are fucking dead.
Before leaving the room, I kiss Izaya's lips once more to savor his taste. It's intoxicating my senses, but if and when he wakes up, I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing how weak he makes me. I guess that's what I've always wanted though, to have all my strength disappear and just be human. I didn't know being human meant being this stupid, crazy, and love struck. Maybe being a monster wasn't too bad. Nah, I'm good like this. Just like this because it's fucking amazing the way I'm feeling right now.
I leave the room after taking one last look at Izaya's peaceful face in a deep sleep. I head over to the door to leave Shinra's house, but Celty stops me.
[Where are you going?] Her PDA reads.
"I'm gonna finish this once and for all. I'm not gonna give them Izaya, not now, not ever. I almost lost him; I'm not letting them take him away." I say sternly as I put my hand on the doorknob.
"Shizuo, please don't do anything dangerous…or stupid…" Shinra says worriedly.
"I'd promise that I won't, but Izaya told me not to make promises I can't keep." I say before leaving calmly.
Izaya once told me I have animalistic instincts. I suppose he was right since after I headed to Shinjuku I just followed the scent that clung onto Izaya and found the yakuza's hiding place pretty easily. I could smell the stench of rats.
When I enter the abandon-looking building, by smashing the door down, I find a bunch of yakuza assholes waiting for me with pistols ready to fire. The guy in the middle, sitting at the desk looks at me with a grin. He's wearing a jacket like Izaya's except for the fur trim. He's the same guy that tried to rape Izaya in the alley hours before.
"What do we have here? I don't see our precious ace in the hole anywhere. What did I tell you, Heiwajima?"
"Shut the fuck up! I'm gonna settle this. What's it gonna take to break that fucking contract?" I ask loudly. The sight of this guy just pisses me off so much. I want to bash his head against the wall.
"Why should it even matter to you? Don't you hate him for what he did to you?" He asks with a laugh. "Besides, he didn't keep his little promise he made to you. You really don't know what he's done during these past six years."
"You're not gonna fool me with that crap again. I trust Izaya." I say sternly. This makes the leader scowl.
"Are you telling me that you're in love with him?" He starts laughing along with the other guys around. "The strongest man of Ikebukuro, a fag?" He looks at me seriously and smiles. "I'm right." It wasn't a question, but my silence gave him an answer anyway.
"Break the contract or I break your fucking neck." I say as I crack my knuckles. He just continues to be cocky and laughs evilly.
"Izaya was right. You can't be reasoned with. You won't allow anyone to suggest their own rules or terms. It always has to go your way or else violence ensues." The guy says with a smirk. "But if that does happen, we know we can handle you if we say…Oh, we know where you're brother and friends are this very minute, you wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them now do you?"
Something in me snapped because after I heard that I forgot about the consequences and went straight for punching him. But, I was faster for some reason so when I practically punched his face in (literally), I was also able to evade the gunshots by jumping over the desk and hiding behind it. Luckily, the leader was embedded in the wall close to the desk so grabbed him out of it and fished out the gun from his pants. I aimed the gun to his head; it's not really my choice of weapon, but it works.
"Haru, sir!" One of the men yells.
"Any of you move and Haru gets the same fate that Izaya has only he won't be breathing when I'm done with him." I say menacingly as I feel the body start to wake up. When Haru does wake up he starts panicking as he notices he's in my arms with a gun pointed to his head. Most, if not all, humans act this way. Even if they prance around telling everyone they're strong and brave, once a gun (or any other menacing weapon) is aimed at their head, they start flailing and begging for mercy.
"Hey Heiwajima, I didn't…I didn't mean what I said…"
"Break the fucking contract." I demand angrily.
"We can't break the contract unless Izaya is here…" Haru says as he grips on my arms to try to release my hold around his neck. "Besides…if I break the contract, the higher-ups will kill me!"
"Either way you're gonna die." I say as I tighten my hold. He starts struggling to breathe.
"Dude, you're fucking crazy!" Haru says loudly. I get fed up with him so I throw him over the desk and kick the desk forward rapidly and with so much force that it pushes most of the guys in front of me to the entrance. While the guys still standing are distracted by their wounded buddies I grab the filing cabinet that's in the room and throw it at one of them. I punch the other guy in the face, making him fly across the room and the last one aims the gun at my head, but I kick it in the air and it lands at my feet. He stares at me for a moment in disbelief and terror and then waves his hands in front of his face frantically.
"Where are the higher-ups?" I ask angrily. The guy almost pisses his pants as I pick him up by his collar.
"They're in another abandoned building way across town. But they'll never break the contract either, Izaya is our ultimate weapon. They won't give that up!"
"We'll see about that." I say as I throw him the ground. Now I have to head all the way across town? Love really does make you do stupid things. I'm not only going through all this trouble, but I'm also messing with the yakuza. I'm not only stupid, but crazy.
The underlings of the yakuza were kind enough to give me the address to the building. Of course they're probably gonna be in some deep shit later, but why would I care about them?
I break the entrance down and see an elevator and some stairs. Since it's an abandoned building I'm thinking it wouldn't be too wise to go through the elevator so I drag my way up the stairs. Like the other abandoned building there's a bunch of guys standing inside with their leader in the middle. I tighten my hold on the gun I had taken from the underlings.
"Ah, Shizuo Heiwajima; it's nice to finally meet you." The guy says happily as he claps his hands together. "I'm sorry I don't have a chair for you, I wasn't expecting company."
"Where's the fucking contract!" I ask angrily. I'm tired of going back and forth.
"Ah, Izaya's contract? Is that what you're looking for? If I remember clearly you said you wanted him dead." I stay silent. "Could it be that you're actually his lover?"
"Stop screwing around and give me the fucking contract!"
"Shizuo, you should realize by now that you never get things easily in this life. How about we make a little bet? If you win this little game I'm gonna choose then I'll break the contract and leave the little slut alone. But if I win, I get to keep him; sound fair?"
"What kind of game?" I ask through gritted teeth. He smiles and someone hands him a gun. He opens it and I see that it's empty. "I think you'll be familiar with it once we get started." He says with a smirk.
I remember seeing this in a movie once. There were two guys, two guns. One bullet is placed in the gun at random, sometimes more are added. Then the 'fun' begins and they start playing the game. If the gun doesn't shoot, then you're in the clear. If it does, well, let's just say you lose not only the game but your life. It really shouldn't even be called a game.
"You know how to play this game, I can tell." The man says with a cat-like smile. "Now then, shall we?"
I lift up my gun and aim it at my head, fearing the worst. The man in front of me does the same, but with a cocky smile. I really doubt that they're gonna play by the rules.
One of the yakuza guys gives me the signal to pull the trigger so I do as I'm told and here a click ring through my ears. The leader doesn't look to happy after that. Then the leader goes and I hear another click. We wait a moment and then restart, another click sounds for both of us. After a while the clicking noise is starting to get irritating but I would rather hear that against my ear than a gunshot.
After a couple more rounds we're finally to the last one. I hesitate for a moment then press the gun to my head, uneasily, though I don't let the leader get the satisfaction of seeing me weak and scared. The man in front of me just smirks as he presses his gun to his forehead and waits for the signal to watch my head explode probably.
My heartbeat gets faster, I get a little more panicked before I finally pull the trigger.
Another click.
The men stare in utter surprise. I'm shocked too, but I don't show it on my face. The leader hesitates with his gun. He probably figured that I was going to blow my head off before it came to this. He probably had this all planned. He purposely put the bullet in the last slot for both of them, but I was forced to go first so that in the last round I'd lose. So now he's scared because he knows he's gonna lose. But if that's the case and mine did have the bullet in the last slot then why didn't it go off?
The yakuza referee is afraid to call the signal, but after he does the leader sighs and smiles.
"Nice game, Heiwajima." He says and puts down the gun. "I don't know how you did it, but you did."
"I guess I'm lucky." This strikes an idea in the man in front of me and he heads into a room after retrieving the contract from his desk. He comes back out with a cage and a little creature inside.
"Here, Izaya would want to have this dirty thing back. And here's the contract." He says as he rips it right there and gives me the pieces. "I enjoy being on top, but my life is a pretty high price for that damn prick." I know he's a prick, but he's my prick. I look down at the cage and finally notice what it is.
It's Shizzy-kun. After all this time it's really him. I look at him in disbelief. I then remember Izaya telling me that rabbits are supposed to bring good luck.
"Maybe we'll get rich, Shizu-chan!" Izaya told me once.
"You're a good boy." I say to him as he gets up and sniffs me. I put my finger through the cage and smile, but unfortunately get said finger nibbled on. "I take back what I said."
"Yeah…anyway seems like Izaya would really want him back. After we took him, he was intent on staying with us even after his debt was paid off."
"What?"
"Well, he paid off his debt about two years ago and was intent on leaving, but once we captured this little guy and told him what we'd do if he left, he decided to stay. So that's when we made a new contract with him. That guy sure is a pansy." I punch the guy in the face and watch him hit the wall before I smirk and glare at the other men in the room.
"I swear, if I ever see you guys near Izaya, I'll make sure that you never come out of this damn building with arms or legs!" I say threateningly as I finally take my leave with Shizzy-kun. The little guy is already six years old and looks pretty laid-back, not as lively as he was before, but he's still cute and kicking.
"Let's take you back to your mommy, eh Shizzy-kun?" I say as I look down at the relaxed little creature.
"Shizzy-kun is very important to me. He was given to me by my favorite monster." Izaya once told a lady down at the vet. Pets usually become one of the family and Shizzy-kun is no different. He's always been very important to Izaya. I, myself, have really gotten attached to him even after all this time he's a real light at the end of the tunnel kind of rabbit.
Someone once said that a rabbit's foot is supposed to be lucky. I guess having one rabbit with both feet, is extremely lucky.
A/N: Shizzy-kun makes his second appearance! DUN DUN DUN! My rabbit snowie is lucky too, when we play cards with him (usually the game where you guess if the card is higher or lower than the first card you picked out) he's usually the winner! ANYWAY please please review! It makes my day go even better!