The sweet vanilla flavor melted in Shizuo's mouth. There was a cone in each of his hands and a large paper bowl filled with more scopes than he was ever willing to spend on ice cream, all of it glistening under the fluorescent lights. He had to alternate between each to ensure that nothing would melt and run down at the ends. The sprinkles and chocolate chips were already licked off from the cones in his hands.

This was just what he needed. If he could, he would eat this for lunch everyday. He carefully held both cones in one hand so that he could take a spoonful of ice cream drizzled in colorful confetti like pieces. He kept the purple spoon longer in his mouth than was probably necessary, but fuck was it good and he absolutely needed it.

He heard a click. A simple click. His eyes opened. He hadn't even realized that he'd closed them while in his bliss. His mood soured as he saw the man sitting across from him, fiddling with his expensive looking phone.

The spoon cracked loudly in his mouth. He angrily took the pieces away.

Orihara Izaya smirked from behind his phone, and there was that same click.

All of his previous anger shimmered through his veins, making his forehead throb. He neatly placed the broken plastic on a napkin. He should just leave and find a bench to sit on. Why was he still sitting here, eating ice cream with this creep? With this annoying pest who took his thin purple spoon from his own mouth and stabbed it into Shizuo's colorful ice cream.

"Here, have mine." He said.

Shizuo would have slapped his defiled ice cream in Izaya's face, but that would be a loss of ice cream. He eyed Izaya's own untouched green tea flavored single scoop of ice cream melting at the sides in his small paper cup. How a man could ignore perfectly good ice cream in front of him was inconceivable to Shizuo. It just further proved how much of a twisted bastard this man was.

"Don't touch my ice cream!" Shizuo threatened in a whisper, not wanting to be too loud since there were children around him.

Since the spoon was already in his ice cream, the damage was already done and he didn't bother getting up to get a new one if that meant leaving the entire thing alone with the other man. He glowered distrustfully at the pest as he ran his tongue over the melting trail along his cone.

Shizuo would have gone back to blissfully enjoying his ice cream if Izaya hadn't started stifling a laugh, with one hand, his phone still out, and pissing him off even more.

"What's so funny?" Shizuo said between a mouthful of cold, delicious ice cream.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing." Izaya said. Which Shizuo didn't believe. "Oh, by the way, you don't have to worry about the broken vending machine or the bent railings. I've already taken care of everything."

Shizuo let the words sink in. Yes, he had broken the vending machine. He ought to be fired for that.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that everything is currently being replaced and no one will be the wiser."

Shizuo continued to frown, not really getting it. "You think buying me ice cream and cleaning up my mess is gonna save your sorry ass? Cause once my hands are free, you are so dead."

"Hmm. I guess I'll just have to keep buying you cones then."

The cones in his own hand were crushed, and ice cream and cone pieces dribbled between his fingers as if he had killed them. He looked from his hand to Izaya, wondering if now would be a good time to strangle him. A few people and children sitting close by gawked at him, and Shizuo remembered that he was in public where kids with their parents and couples were enjoying their desserts. His ears burned and he felt like an idiot.

Izaya passed him a few square napkins with the letters B and R printed on them. What Shizuo could salvage he combined it to his bowl of ice cream.

"Shall I buy you some more?" His wallet was already out, and Shizuo felt even more stupid.

"Don't bother."

Izaya settled back in his seat, the easy smile on his face. His phone vibrated and he looked down, laughed, and began to type.

Shizuo took a bite of his ice cream, but it lost some of it's heavenly flavor. He finished it anyway, wiped the grey table of any remaining mess, and he cleaned his hands of the stickiness. Only seven minutes remained of his lunch break. It wasn't really enough time to murder someone and hide the body. He also wanted to keep his job.

He stood up and threw away his trash. Izaya did the same, dumping his untouched ice cream, which kind of annoyed Shizuo all over again and confused him. Why the hell had he decided to go to an ice cream shop if he didn't want any ice cream?

When they were out of the store, Shizuo went at a brisk pace, trying to outwalk the other and get back to work on time. Of course the bastard followed him and was beside him like an evil, grinning parasite.

"Go another way. I'm walking here."

"Is this your sidewalk, Shizu-chan? Because the way I see this, it's the fastest way."

"Don't call me that and don't walk so close to me!"

He stepped back finally, and Shizuo was able to breathe again.

"Alright, alright." Izaya said, but he was still following Shizuo and it was uncomfortable as hell. They made it to the hospital and he went through one of the back entrances where he normally went out to smoke for a bit. And at last Izaya had said goodbye.

Shizuo sighed in relief and checked the time. He had about three minutes to spare. Would he be able to survive much more of this? Should he transfer hospitals? Fuck! He just moved into his new apartment and would hate to break the lease if he ended up too far. What was the bastards problem anyway?

"Ah, Heiwajima-san." Shizuo came out of his thoughts and turned to see one of his colleges who he had forgotten the name of.

"Yes?"

She pointed to his chest, and he wondered if he had gotten any ice cream there when he had crushed the cone. But what he saw was much worse. His shirt had been sliced open revealing a nick as deep as a papercut but going a couple inches across his sternum. How had he not noticed that? He looked at it dumbly before he remembered that he was in company. He also had no explanation.

"Izaya..." He began, but it's not like he could tell her the whole story. "Sorry, it's nothing." He put a hand over his ruined shirt and walked away as fast as he could so that he could change. Then he remembered that he had gone to the bastard's desk to get his uniform back, but now he couldn't remember just where he had dropped it. He would have to borrow another pair. It was really no surprise that he was late for his shift again.

It was many paranoid hours later of thinking that he'd be fired any second, and once his shift ended he breathed out a loud sigh in relief. It seemed like Izaya had told him the truth about taking care of things.

On his way to the locker, Shizuo took out his phone to message Shinra.

[There is something seriously messed up with that bastard. He's harassing me.]

The response didn't come right away, not that he was expecting it to. Shizuo decided to go home. He made it to his locker and opened it to find a uniform hanging there. His uniform and not some cheap slutty nurse costume. His nose scrunched as he took it out, smelling the stench that seemed to permeate from his clothes. He'd need to wash them with extra bleach at this rate.

He didn't feel completely safe till he had made it to his apartment. He took a quick much needed shower, and the tension left his shoulders as the spray ran over his back. Walking out in fresh clothes and towel drying his hair, Shizuo felt almost normal again. He checked his fridge for something that he could make. It was while he was pouring himself some water that his phone beeped.

It was probably Shinra, and he wondered why in the first place he had decided to contact him about this, when just thinking about it got him on edge all over again. He went to his phone anyway and flipped it open. It was indeed from Shinra.

[Harassing? But I just got back from messaging Izaya and was about to congratulate you. I thought for sure the date was a success. I got the pictures too.]

In the next message, there was a photo attachment of him eating ice cream with stupid looking glitter everywhere. Shizuo struggled not to break his phone.

[That wasn't a date! That's the harassment I was talking about!]

[What? Buying you ice cream? But...I told him you liked ice cream. Oops.]

[You don't understand. He's inappropriately harassing me.]

Shinra was certainly laughing at him. But he was also the only guy that knew Izaya and who might be able to help.

[Is he now? Ah, I wish I was so lucky to have Celty inappropriately harassing me! Ah, Celty can do anything to me, and it would be exquisite. Just the other day, she made me dinner in an apron. I nearly died from happiness. She was so cute...]

Shizuo was disgusted. He didn't bother reading the rest. Of course he couldn't expect the perverted doctor to help him.

Shizuo threw his phone into the couch and it bounced from the cushion and clattered to the floor. He got up and began to pace around his room with his hands in his damp hair.

He never before wanted to kill someone so badly. He needed to hire an assassin, that was the only way that he could keep his job. But he didn't have enough money probably. He'd have to save up, right? But that would take too long, and he'd end up just killing Izaya.

He growled, hating feeling like this. It'd been so long since he felt so out of control that he might just do something stupid. He'd spent too much effort to just let one asshole ruin his life.

He ended up smoking an entire pack that night, all the while thinking up ways to get the flea off his back, but coming up short each time. On his last cigarette he was thinking that maybe rotting the rest of his life in prison wasn't that bad, if it meant that the man was dead.

But that wasn't really a solution.

He would just have to endure for now.

Wow, this was long over due. Don't know when the next update will be though.