(A/N)

Blackfallstar9: I was super concernicus that you weren't gonna review, but im so so so happy that you did. It was just the boost I needed to kick my but into gear and get this out. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such nice reviews on every chapter. It really means a lot.

Lucy Valkyrie: I'm really glad you like it !

Once again, there's dingles in the chapter whoops

Xx-xX

Shinra is staring at Shizuo with that same knowing glint in his eye. It bothers him to no end. He always hated being around people that act smarter than him, despite the fact that most of the time they are. It wasn't as though he was stupid– far from it– but that didn't change the fact that people still treated him like he was a fucking idiot. He jumped to conclusions maybe a little too quickly, and once he came to a conclusion, he was stuck in it with no possible chance of changing it without irrefutable evidence or divine intervention. Or Izaya, but it was always different with Izaya, wasn't it?

The letter sits on the counter between Shizuo and Shinra like it's being interrogated for a crime. Shizuo stares at it for a long time. Regardless of what's inside, this is his key to finding Izaya. Well– it's his biggest clue at the time, he supposes.

"So what are you gonna do now?"

Shizuo's stare breaks away from the envelope to Shinra, who has subsequently said nothing up until this point.

"What kind of question is that?" Shizuo hisses. "I'm gonna go find him– isn't that obvious?"

Shinra's face strikes pensive for a fragment of time. "I don't know if that's the best idea."

"Well, why the hell not?"

Shinra clears his throat and wraps his hands together on the surface of the counter top. "I've known Izaya the longest. When he feels like he's backed into a corner, he'll respond with extremes. If he's in as bad shape as his texts would reflect, then I'm just not sure if you should drop everything and chase after him."

Shizuo stares back at the letter. A nauseous, uneasiness crawls deep in the pit of Shizuo's stomach. He's never understood the phrase "butterflies in the stomach." To him, it's always been more like wasps. Wasps that climb and dig through the muscle and nest in hard shells in his lungs. It's suffocating and painful, but he knows it's all in his head. There isn't anything that you can take for not wanting to admit that you're in love with someone.

"What are you gonna do about Itzal?"

The name causes Shizuo to flinch like he's been burned, and he has. His affections, which, until that night, he had thought would have been stronger than any apprehensions of his true identity, were scorned so hard that he can't even fathom how to bounce back from it. He doesn't know what Shinra is getting at, but he feels like he should, and he also feels guilty. Whenever he thinks about Itzal, it always seems like a passing thought in favor of Izaya. Shizuo knows this. He doesn't particularly understand it, but he seems to think it stems from a romantic intent on his part. Shizuo doesn't want to think about Izaya or his voice or his smile or his laugh. He doesn't want to think about those meals that were definitely not dates when he found out that Izaya is capable of being funny and kind in a way that seems far more natural than any malice he's shared in the past. He absolutely doesn't want to think of the way Izaya's name came tumbling from his lips when he would masturbate or when he was actually engaging in sexual acts with someone else he claimed he was in love with.

He supposes that it comes from the nostalgic sense of love that clouds around Izaya. Shizuo knew that he was in love with Izaya. He knew that from day one, and simply refused to allow it due to his notion that Izaya was the "bad guy," and he was the "good guy" and bad guys and good guys can't be together (looking at you, Batman). But, maybe they could. At least, maybe the good guy could rehabilitate the bad guy, but when he thinks about Izaya fighting for justice like a good guy, the image doesn't sit well with him. That wouldn't be Izaya, he thinks, and then he wouldn't be the man that Shizuo had dubiously fallen in love with.

It proves that Shizuo's affections go deeper than shallow appearances. Sure, Izaya was beautiful– absolutely radiant at the best of times– and for the longest time of his high school career, Shizuo had attempted to convince himself that that was why he was interested in Izaya. However, deep down, way deep down, he thinks that he rationally knew that was just a cop out. Izaya had told him that he would never be afraid of Shizuo, and instantly Shizuo fell fast and hard. And he's still falling. With Izaya off in Romania, not talking to him, or being here at all, Shizuo feels like he's at the bottom of an endless pit, forever falling, tumbling. Izaya has left him hanging by a thread, and the other isn't even aware of what he's doing.

The biggest problem with loving Izaya, is that Izaya could never love him back. Izaya loved humans. In Izaya's gorgeous, carmine eyes, Shizuo wasn't a human– he was a monster. Izaya couldn't love a monster, and that's what made Shizuo a monster. He loved all humans. Shizuo wasn't loveable. That made him a monster. It hurt, to say the least. The only person that wasn't afraid of his strength or temper hated him more than anything else in the world. Shinra had said that wasn't the case. He proposed the hypothesis that the key part in Izaya's reasoning that Shizuo was missing was the "equally" part. Izaya loved all humans equally. He rarely allowed himself to fall romantically into the arms of another human, and if he did (that one time that ended fucking horribly) there was some other incentive: power, money, status, recognition. Shinra thinks that the reason that Shizuo was a monster was because Izaya had fallen in love with him– he loves him more than any other human he's ever met.

Shizuo doesn't think so, but Shinra continues to insist.

He refuses to entertain the idea. It would only be dangerous for Izaya and also himself if he had managed to convince himself that the other had actually fallen in love with him. That could never happen– at least that's what he told himself when they were out on their completely platonic, non-romantic outings as definitely not a couple.

Shinra and Celty both looked a little skeptical at the crestfallen Shizuo when he explained their meals together. Both of them had agreed, against Shizuo's judgement, that it was a date. And from an outside perspective, maybe it looked like that. There was a romantic setting. There were flowery glances, soft smiles, and pleasantly comfortable periods of both conversation and silence.

Shizuo was always surprised when Izaya would propose a dinner. It was always Izaya that had to take the initiative to actually meet up with him, but he was always happy to agree (possibly a little too quickly than he should have been comfortable with). Their first lunch at that random shop had been a little too romantic, but it was a couple's restaurant. French places tended to be like that with their illusion as the city of love. Dinners at Russia Sushi had always been the more intimate meals. It was the closest Shizuo thinks they got to a date. For some reason, Simon made sure that they were practically alone in the own corner of the restaurant, which was nice for obvious reasons. It gave Shizuo a chance to really hone in on Izaya and all of the little quirks he has. When he gets nervous, he taps his ring on the side of his drink glasses. When he talks to people he doesn't particularly want to talk to, his stare settles on their nose, or their eyebrow, or something that isn't the collision of their eyes. He uses his hands when he talks– waves them animatedly with each syllable that falls off his tongue. He cracks his knuckles audibly when he gets bored. He's beautiful, and radiant, and just absolutely breathtakingly stunning that Shizuo can only stare for so long before he has to physically force his eyes away from Izaya's grin.

He misses him, so much so that he's realizing that even if he finds Izaya, he might just let Itzal go. He'll just let the other continue to hide in his self imposed exile so that he can truly focus on Izaya and how much he... feels... for him. But then he remembers all the chaste kisses and the smell of rain water that sunk into his clothes, in his head, into everything.

Shizuo hates it when it rains now. He never liked it to begin with, but now as the sidewalks flood with water, it reminds him of all the things that he wishes he could move on from. The snow isn't much better. Itzal's lips were always as cold and soft as the freshly fallen snow. Shizuo gets sad when he thinks about it. His sadness purrs into anger and then he thinks of the melodic lilt of Itzal singing that one song.

Izaya likes to sing too, Shizuo has found. He sings a lot though, when he thinks that no one is listening. Izaya sings very wide and open like he's been studying how to control the notes for years. He sings everything, too. Songs across all expanses of life, some more difficult in the notes than others, and in many different languages. His voice reminds Shizuo of a piano. It's delicate and quiet and beautiful– so much so that it's stopped Shizuo in his tracks so that he can savor the notes as they dance out of the expanse of Izaya's throat. He's mesmerizing when he sings. His face relaxes into something inhuman. He reminds Shizuo of a siren– radiant in face and song, and manipulative to the point of death.

Too bad he can't swim.

When comparing the two, Izaya and Itzal, that is, Shizuo decides that he likes Izaya's singing better, and entertains his thoughts with images of slow Sunday afternoons, of Izaya running his fingers through blonde hair and singing about love and all other happy things. It's a foolish image, dangerous even to conjure, but it makes him feel better. He thinks that it could happen. He wants it to happen possibly more than anything else in his world. He wants the domesticity with Izaya that he could never have with anyone else. Izaya can handle him. Izaya has always made every adaptation for him, and Izaya is generous in a way that Shizuo selfishly wishes to hold all to himself.

Shizuo has never been good with controlling himself. This fact is especially true for instances where the people he loves are involved.

That notion in of itself is enough prove his adoration for Izaya. He loves him. He loves him more than he's ever loved anyone else. More than Itzal, more than any distraction of Varona, and more than any other person who's ever vied for his affections. He... He is so desperately in love with Izaya that in this moment, the air rushes out of his lungs like a physical blow that stings and hurts but he wouldn't have it any other way. The only thing that could possibly make this any better is if Izaya was here with him in this moment- trapped in the cage of Shizuo's arms locked around his abdomen and holding him so tight that Izaya can't even think to run away again.

There's a certain determination in the way his fist clenches around the crisp edges of the envelope in his hand. He's going to find Izaya if it's the last thing he does.

Shinra doesn't seem to surprised or impressed with Shizuo's conviction, and Shizuo doesn't care. This isn't about how Shinra feels. This is about the suffocatingly heavy emptiness that rots in his chest like it's killing him, and the knowledge that Izaya is the only one that can fill it.

Shinra's words flood him. From the second long glances at sliced open wrists, Shizuo can only assume the worst when thinking of what Izaya defines as extremes. Surely he must be hurting where he is, but if that was really the case, then why not just come back? There's something he's missing– something that he can't place in the logic of Izaya's decisions and his own personal convictions. If he decides to go, he could very well be bargaining with Izaya's life, but if he doesn't, then he's consciously leaving Izaya alone to suffer on his own, which could have the same catastrophic effects.

I am horrifically sorry about how long it has taken for this. As college started for me, this project got shoved to the back burner for a while. The idea of multiple endings has been abandoned, however the fic itself has not. I will be posting this message on the next chapter as well, and once again. I'm sorry.