A.N: Yay! New chapter! Sorry for the wait :D. Hope everyone likes it so far! Thanks so much for reading, and review are always appreciated :DD. I want to get better ^^! Look, Izaya starting to realize his feelings XD!

3. Stepping it Up

It was mid-afternoon before Shizuo saw Izaya again. During the time between their encounters, Shizuo had thought about him often. The look on his face. How pathetically angry he seemed. It was, in a severely disturbed and twisted way, cute. Izaya was cute when he was angry, and it happened so rarely that Shizuo had never noticed it before. Almost like they were switching roles. Instead of Shizuo flaring up with a bad temper, looking for a fight on sight, Izaya seemed to be the one on the offensive.

It felt very good to be the one to sit back, smirk, and enjoy the antics of the other. Maybe this is how Izaya felt. He was always looking down on people, watching them react to certain things that he did to them. He liked it, the perverted bastard. But Shizuo could definitely see the appeal in it. Over the course of the morning, he had worked it all out.

If he didn't react, if he didn't get mad, Izaya's strategy would backfire and hit in the other direction. Izaya would react. Izaya would get mad. It was just downright satisfying. Why hadn't he thought of it years ago? It was rewarding, interesting, and shockingly fun.

It was kind of like an old board game your friend wants to play. You wouldn't suggest the game, you wouldn't be excited to play it, but if someone offers you'll surely join in for a good time. Shizuo didn't care enough to seek out the flea, but if Izaya showed up again (as he always seemed to do), Shizuo wouldn't complain.

The challenge of the game was that it would probably get harder. Izaya was smart; Shizuo knew that. The flea had probably already figured out the rules. One of them had to get mad, and Izaya would try harder and harder to ensure is was Shizuo who popped. It would be up to Shizuo to stay calm, to ignore him. It would be hard, but deliciously gratifying. He chuckled to himself as he lifted his cigarette to his lips, his second one of the day. Tom glanced over at him as they exited the townhouse of a loyal client.

"What's with you?" he asked, not knowing whether to be concerned or elated. Shizuo, ever since that morning, had been acting strangely subdued. Happy, even.

"What do you mean?" Shizuo asked, not bothering to look over at him. The sun was brighter by this time of day, and his eyes squinted even from behind his sunglasses. He grinned as he looked down both sides of the street. Izaya was somewhere looking for him. He would bet a million yen.

"You just seem so…" Tom trailed off, trying to think of a suitable word. "Cheerful."

Shizuo could only laugh at this, removing his cig with two fingers and flicking some ash on the ground. "Oh, come on. Am I not allowed to be happy once in a while?"

"I've just never seen you smile so much."

"Well, I smile," he said, voice getting a little deeper. He was starting to feel defensive. Was it bad for him to be enjoying this so much? He suddenly dropped his cigarette, mouth falling open. Fuck, did that mean he was turning into the flea?

Tom, seeing Shizuo's now horrified expression and fearful that he had ruined the mood, gave the blonde a little push down the stoop, hurrying into his next statement. "Glad to see you in such high spirits, Shizuo! Really, I am. It's a wonderful change. More animated-like. I think you're even scaring off less people than usual."

They both took this moment to assess the current population level, and sure enough, less people seemed to be shrinking back from them. The sparse masses nearby weren't staring at him as much. His shoulders sagged anyway. He felt like a bastard.

"I'm such a bastard," he said, rubbing a hand over his face. He stomped on his cigarette, snuffing it out. Tom tried to catch his eyes, quizzical.

"Shizuo, what-?"

Then they both tensed up at the next spoken word.

"Shizu-chaaaaaaaan~!"

Tom hung his head while Shizuo removed his glasses to better pinch the bridge of his nose. "Shit," he said. Just who he wanted to see. He felt like such a jerk for wanting to incite the same reactions as Izaya did, so the game wasn't as much fun. But when he glanced up at Izaya, looking more exasperated than angry, he could see the falter in the rust-colored eyes. It invigorated him, just a little.

"What is it?" he asked. He wanted to silk over his tone to sound as normal and pleasant as possible. The people nearby who had been running for their lives at the sight of the two men together now stopped and glanced over their shoulders. Heiwajima Shizuo sounded almost…cordial.

Izaya was just as surprised by the tone of voice, and he lost his edge, if only for a minute. His cheeks, while no one could see from that distance, started feeling hot again. But he smirked, brandishing his knife. "I came to see if your work was done." He twirled his knife, letting it surf through his agile fingers. "I want to play."

Shizuo, shrouding his annoyance in a sigh that he hoped sounded more tired and angry, slipped his glasses back on and started fishing in his pockets for his pack of smokes. "You know, Izaya," he said in the voice that normal people reserve for casual small talk with acquaintances, "I think you and I should have a truce."

Izaya's stomach was starting to feel funny. That voice. That damn voice he was using. It actually caused him to visibly twitch. It was so soft, so deep and silky, like chocolate. And he was so calm, funneling all of his masculine, laid-back energy into one outlet. When Shizuo's lips touched the butt of the cigarette, sliding it from its safe packaging, Izaya felt his gut clench; it made him gasp.

"Fuck," he muttered. Shizuo looked up at him.

"What was that you said?"

"I said, 'what?'" Izaya hoped that the words "fuck" and "what" sounded enough alike to pass off as slips of the tongue. His face by now was burning, his hands sweating so badly that he might not have been able to fight effectively. It was strange and surreal to him. He wasn't even listening to Shizuo, who was spouting off some shit about being genial to one another.

"-so then we might actually live our lives, instead of chasing each other all the time. You could leave me alone, I'll stop running after you, and people will stop fearing for their lives and property whenever they see us together. How about that?"

The crowd, including Tom, was in utter disbelief. It wasn't until Shizuo turned a critical, annoyed eye to them that they all starting milling around again, bustling by one another to get home just in case the bartender was truly angry with them. Izaya, who was struggling to speak, didn't know what to say. When no one said anything, Shizuo himself felt a little strange. While before, all that time before, he had been hiding his anger, now it was truly draining away. To see that damn adorable expression on Izaya—not just rage, but also sheer speechlessness—was too much to be angry at. It was just too fucking cute. Shizuo, unable to really understand why, chuckled at him.

"Funny face, Izaya," he said. Tom was watching them both, looking back and forth between them. It was a miracle. It was just…miracle. Izaya, as if snapped back to the world with that comment, held his knife straight out, eyes dead and serious.

"Fight me, Shizu-chan," he commanded. His voice was deep. He was trying to take unwarranted authority from somewhere, and to Shizuo it was endearing. And when Izaya saw that the only thing Shizu-chan would do was smile at him, Izaya trembled with the force of his voice. "Fight me, dammit!"

"No," he said. He felt bad and good all at once, when he said that. He felt good, because he knew he was winning, but he felt bad for the same reason, because Izaya was losing. Some tiny piece of Shizuo, in the very back of his own mind, loved to fight the flea. He hated violence, of course, but exchanging verbal and physical blows with Orihara Izaya was a pleasure, was a pastime. Shizuo was sure that Izaya felt the same way. The flea was just doing a terrible job, in comparison, of hiding it. At the denial, Shizuo smirked as Izaya threw a little mini-tantrum, stomping one foot.

"The fuck, Shizu-chan! Why not?" No one was close enough to see, looking hard enough, but Izaya was shaking. He was just so angry. Was this how Shizu-chan felt whenever he saw Izaya? Was this how mad he felt? Was this was it was like, to be Shizu-chan? To be so angry he didn't know what to do except lash out? Luckily for him, and for the rest of the world, he didn't get angry like this often and when he did he had the necessary control to restrain himself from throwing vending machines or refrigerators. Shizuo just turned away from him, half because he wanted to leave and half because he didn't want to be pinned by that cute face anymore.

"Because I'm going home, Izaya," he said. Izaya stiffened when Shizuo used his name, and not flea, or idiot, or fucking asshole or something. Tom, who determined for the best that today's work was done, followed after Shizuo. Izaya grit his teeth, but managed a snarky grin.

He pointed his knife at Shizuo again and closed one eye, staring at Shizuo's back in comparison with his blade. "You will fight me, Shizu-chan." Shizu-chan didn't say anything, and Izaya slowly lowered his weapon, slitting his eyes like a cat. "You will fucking fight me."

And Izaya believed it, with every fiber of his being. He would make that man angry enough to fight him. Some way, somehow, he would.

Shizuo, smile gone, felt a little melancholy as he walked away from the fight. It wasn't like him to feel this way, especially with Izaya, but somehow he felt sad. He felt guilty, which was completely uncalled for. Why should he feel guilty at all, especially with the stupid old flea? The thought irked him, made him frustrated. Tom could see all the conflicting emotions playing out on the bartender's face. He didn't want to interrupt, certainly, but he felt inclined to speak.

"Shizuo?" he asked. He got a grunt from said Shizuo in return. "What was that all about? Are you two on different terms?" He mused over it when Shizuo didn't reply immediately. "Like a role reversal or something."

Shizuo shook his head, still really unable to explain the whole thing. The relationship was complicated, and it got more complex every second. He didn't have the energy to try and narrate the latest development. "I don't know," he finally grumbled, adjusting his glasses. "To hell with it." He straightened up, determined to just forget the whole thing. The game was over, he had won. Izaya had lost. Things could get back to normal, or something close to it, he supposed. He escorted Tom up the street to an office building.

"Will you be all right from here? I'm just going home."

Tom thought it would be for the best, seeing as he seemed so off kilter. He thought Shizuo needed rest, or at the least some relaxation. Shizuo waved off his concern. It was unfounded. Tom was just being Tom, worrying about him too much. Izaya didn't mean that much to him.

So he went home. He went home to his still-coffee-stained pants, the crackling television, the old fridge with hardly anything in it. He went home to all that, trying to forget about the day. It was just too weird for him to really process.