Author's Note: I was reading up about Tom for this chapter, and I found this little line online - The light novels state that he works for an online dating website. – CURRENTLY DYING OF LAUGHTER. THIS IS TOO PERFECT OH MY GOSH.

"What?" Shizuo growled out between a drag and exhale of his cigarette. The little white stick was perched between two slender fingers now, the cloud of smoke still lingering around in the air near his head. He was leant back against the cool wall of a building settled on a street near the metropolitan plaza. He didn't know what it was, some office block or apartment complex or something. Right now his attention was focused on the figure stood next to him, slouching somewhat with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The other man was dressed in a brown suit, with hair the same colour falling past his chin in thick little dreaded locks. The two of them were currently awaiting the arrival of one of their 'clients', who was due to pay up their loan today. Shizuo was mostly sure the rat wouldn't turn up, they never did, and he normally had to end up kicking down their door in order to get the money.

"Oh, nothing," Tom answered, but the tone of his voice and the little lilt of his lips said a thousand different words. One of Shizuo's eyebrows arched in such a way that it told the other man he knew there was more too it. He could already feel the annoyance flushing under his skin. Shizuo never lost his temper with Tom, because Tom had employed him when no one else would, he had looked out for him in school, and because the damn debt collector had a way about him just like Celty, always knowing what to say to calm Shizuo down. There was a little pause, in which Shizuo took another drag out his cigarette, watching the smoke twirl out and dance upon the open air like ink lost in the depths of a bowl of water. Today had been relatively calm, and so the smoke had been more out of habit than because his temper needed calming down with a long nicotine fix. Humans always were creatures of habit.

"You just seem different today," Tom commented after a while, as if he had been debating on whether or not to say it. "You're quieter than normal,"

Shizuo scoffed and looked down the street from Tom; what as opposed to his talkative demeanour every other day? He supposed in some manner of speaking it was true. When they had visited their first client of the day, he had refrained from throwing the louse into the next country, instead merely kicking in the front door and shaking him around a bit. He'd still paid up, and Shizuo had managed to keep his temper somewhat in check. Shizuo had noticed the difference in himself, but had thought at least he was free from Tom or anyone else commented on that when he wasn't sure what it meant himself.

"Did something happen with Kasuka?" His boss enquired, and Shizuo turned back to the suited man to fix him with a steely gaze. Tom was one of two people able to mention his brother without being catapulted across the city with one of Shizuo's right hooks; the other was Nakura. The blonde almost smiled at Tom's concern, but he kept the same outside appearance, giving a curt shake of his head and a gruff 'hn' in response, returning to his cigarette, still unfinished. He could feel Tom's eyes on the side of his head when he turned away again, but chose to ignore it. Shizuo was good at ignoring people staring at him, he'd had it most of his life. Thankfully his boss appeared to not chase the subject, letting it fall away with the smoke from Shizuo's cigarette, drifting further and further from the pair of them with each second that past, dissipating into the air.

Shizuo was thankful for that indeed. How did one even begin to explain that their change in character was due to a new acquaintance, and an online one at that? How did one even begin to explain that they'd met through a dating website? – Even if Shizuo was still convinced that it had been Tom who had shoved that flyer for the site through his door in the first place. He knew the man had other business too, but Shizuo had never found of what. Though for now it seemed, neither was going to give anything away, and that was fine, Shizuo was fine with that. If anything, he should be thanking Tom, though his pride would never let him, because if he had been the one, then it was because of Tom that he had met Nakura, and it was because of Nakura that Shizuo was ever changing, forging forward into this better person.

Yeah, yeah. Shizuo knew he was different today, and he knew why. He'd always hated to think he was the type of man to be influenced easily by silly little things, and yet here he was, with his temper cooled for an entire day, just the result of a night of emailing some silly man over in Shinjuku. Nakura and he had stayed up late the previous night; Shizuo hadn't wanted to waste the opportunity to ask Nakura whatever he wanted, he had to make the most of the man being ready to divulge information about himself. Shizuo was entitled to a little bit of selfishness, wasn't he? Besides, no, no, it was a good thing. It wasn't good to bottle things up, and so he was really helping Nakura, wasn't he? That was what people did in relationships, it was, and even Shizuo knew that. And yet— The two of them weren't in a relationship, were they? They'd come so far, and learnt so much about the other, but they weren't a couple, in fact Shizuo didn't even know what they were. It didn't matter for the time being though, all that mattered was that Shizuo seemed to be getting the hang of this, and there was some- some feeling bubbling inside of his chest whenever he spoke to Nakura that gave him hope that maybe when they met it wouldn't all end in disaster like he had predicted it would. Nakura trusted him now, or did to an extent. And Shizuo trusted him too; there was no question of that. How much had last night proved that? Nakura had answered every question he had posed, had replied to every query of Shizuo's curious mind, had not hidden away from anything, baring himself out to Shizuo as if they'd known each other for years. All of that hidden past that Nakura had alluded too, all of the things that Shizuo had picked up on sly undertones to the other man's words, he knew it all now, Nakura had told him everything, or near enough to everything; he was still coy on just what he truly thought of Shizuo, something that had caused annoyance to burn within Shizuo.

Shizuo wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that the other man hadn't left his mind since the previous night. He wasn't sure if these feelings stirring in him were good or not, he didn't even know what they were. He wasn't sure what it was about Nakura that made Shizuo feel so different. He didn't know.

"I'm not that different," Shizuo grumbled, though many minutes had passed, and Tom had probably forgotten to what he was even referring. There was a frown pulling at the blonde's features, crinkling his brow and tugging down at the corners of his lips as if someone was pulling them down with little fingers. He scoffed again, dropping the end of his cigarette to the floor and stamping out the spark with the ball of his shoe. "Look, he's not coming Tom. Let's just go to Simon's and forget about the rat for the day,"

Tom merely smiled, though Shizuo didn't see now that the blonde had pushed himself off of the wall and was starting to walk in the direction of the little sushi shop. Tom wanted to laugh. The Shizuo he had gotten so used to would have lost it at one of their clients pulling a disappearing act, would have taken it as a personal insult and ripped apart Ikebukuro as if he were looking for Orihara instead of someone skipping out on a bit of money. This Shizuo was someone entirely different, it was, and Tom had to wonder just what had prompted this change. There was some new light around the grouchy blonde, one that even Tom could see.

"Yes, you are," Tom Tanaka said, to himself of course, laughing ghostly light. The words caught on the breeze, like the smoke from the cigarette that now lay crushed on the floor, half-dying, stubbed out by the retreating blonde headed figure of a changed man. Tom shrugged a shoulder lazily, making off after his employee.

The cigarette sat, crumpled on the pavement, flickering out with the last of its light in the dying wind.

"Yes, you are."