Author's Note: I always seem to write longer chapters when I write for Izaya. I'm not sure if it's a good thing how easily I can obviously put myself in Izaya's point of view orz. There's a quote from The Great Gatsby in here somewhere, if you spot it I will provide you with Izaya's sushi and my eternal love.

Guess who got tickets for the Harry Potter set tour? Kiwi did~! WAH SO EXCITED.

It was cold when Izaya left Shiki's den. At some point when he had been inside the clouds had closed over the sun and the temperature had dropped. At some point it had started to sprinkle with rain, as if the sky were crying where Izaya could not. What a ridiculous notion that he could cry. He didn't do that anymore. That was left in the old days, those pathetically human days when he had been ruled by fucking naivety and a foolish notion of love. Love didn't exist. It was a monster, it just was. He could feel the chill snatching its cold fingers under the flimsy shirt as he walked, probing at his skin and peeking under the bandage to raise goose bumps on his pale flesh. The blood from his cut had dried since he had been inside, and now the fabric was stiff, and the very fact that he was wearing it made him uncomfortable. He didn't like feeling dirty, clean, clean, clean and healthy, that was what Izaya liked. The weather only worsened as he walked, the cold got icier and the shower of rain turned to hard, heavy droplets as if the sky was now sobbing hysterically. By the time Izaya arrived back at his loft in Shinjuku after catching the train there, he was soaked to the skin.

The dirty shirt was the first to go. He grasped at the bottom and stripped it over his head in the same way as he had at Shiki's. He observed it for a moment, eyes lingering on the stain on the side where he had bled. It was horrible and dirty and it went straight in the bin in the kitchen, but he knew that it was better than if he had worn that red shirt back home. Wearing clothes that belonged to his first lover's new fuck? How messed up was that. Red. Red. Why was that colour haunting him? Red like the scarf around his neck that he tossed to the sofa too, red like his blood. The injury to the side of his torso did nothing to help, especially now that the bandage had gotten damp from being under his shirt, soaked, all the way home. It stung as he moved, and he bit back a wince through gritted teeth. The dumb brute would pay for this. Izaya would see to it personally that a knife found its way into Shizuo's neck or lodge somewhere between his ribcage where Izaya wondered if a heart even lived. Dumb brute, barely any better than some rabid animal, Izaya would make him pay for this fucking discomfort, he would. It wasn't often that Izaya even got in the way of Shizuo's anger. There was a reason he could go head to head with the blonde on a regular basis. He was quick, and his reflexes were honed to perfection from years of living in the underworld, but he had been off today, even he could see that. He guessed Shinozuka had been to blame for that, hey, hey, just another thing that Izaya could blame on the man. He was pissed with Shizuo more that he hadn't been able to meet the man he had taken such an interest in. Hey, hey, just another reason for Izaya to hate the oaf. Dumb brute, stupid, stupid, monster. So unrefined, so uncivilised.

Once he had pulled off the jeans he had squeezed into, not an easy task when they were skin tight to begin with and now had been soaked right through, he exchanged them for the boxer shorts that he normally slept in, pulling out a vest to leave for later if it got cold. It was better to air the bandage and not cover it with anything. He didn't want to have to call Shinra to bandage it again later, because there was no way he was going back to Shiki and admitting that he was right, that he still couldn't manage on his own and that he hadn't changed after all. Izaya cursed the notion that him being unable to bandage his own wounds had such a stupid effect as this. It was warmer in his apartment, but he could still feel a slight nip of cold wash over his bare upper body as he settled into the tall chair at his desk. It was getting dark outside now, and lights were beginning to flicker on through the city that Izaya could see from his window. It was a view that he always admired, that always calmed him down whenever the workload piled up too high or he was bored with it.

His computer hummed to life when he nudged the on button with one of his toes, and it wasn't long before the log in screen had booted up and Izaya was typing in his password. He was the only one who lived here, but it didn't mean that he didn't take precautions and password protect all of his computer and its files. Who knew what that wretch Namie could get up to while he was gone if he left her here? He checked through a couple of emails from his contacts, reporting in on some intel he'd asked for a couple of days ago, and deleting the emails from those other pathetic humans he'd been stringing along in his games. Suddenly the idea of playing with them didn't seem so appealing anymore. When had this game with Shinozuka taken such a serious turn? Izaya had started this as a silly game, and yet if the feelings being dragged to light, kicking and screaming inside him were anything to go by, this was quickly turning into something out of Izaya's control. He didn't like being out of control, it scared him. The last time he had been out of control of his actions, his emotions, had been when he had been living with Shiki, and that had gone just swimmingly well, hadn't it? This game was leading him to ruin, or it certainly would do if Izaya didn't put an end to it now, if he didn't get back in control, and yet he couldn't bring himself to stop it completely. It was like some twisted domino effect, one piece had fallen, and now all of the others were crumbling down.

Once all of that had been dealt with, he opened up a new email, adding in Shinozuka's name in the addressee box at the top. What would even be an acceptable reason for him not showing up? Because Izaya had seen no one approach him before Shizuo had put an end to his plans for the day, and so it was likely that Shinozuka had been waiting around for a Nakura that had never showed, so hey, hey, the least Izaya could do was apologise for that, right? Just how did one say that they had to skip out early because Shizuo Heiwajima had tried to kill them though?

'I hope Shino-chan isn't angry with me…
Eh~ they had a big hold up on the train, can you believe it that?
I hope you can forgive me~
Maybe we can rearrange another date?
I'm curious about that face of yours!
X.'

Izaya watched as it sent, leaning back in his chair once the little message announcing it had been sent popped up on his screen, letting out a whoosh of air that he had sucked in when he had started typing. He knew from what the other man had told him in the past that he would be home from work by now, and Izaya gathered that he would have had the afternoon off to meet Nakura – no, no him – anyway. Besides, with Shinozuka receiving emails to his phone, then he shouldn't have to wait too long for a reply. He turned once again to look out of the window while he waited, losing himself in watching the cars and trains and flashing lights outside. They were all so busy, all so unaware of themselves and each other in the enchanted metropolitan twilight. In this world, this lonely city, there were only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. Right now Izaya felt nothing but tired, and the longer he was left waiting for a reply did nothing to help that. His stomach was growling, protesting that he hadn't eaten since lunch time the previous day, but the nausea in his gut pushed away any thought of eating. So what if Shiki said he looked skinny. That meant nothing, that meant jack shit. He wasn't thin, he was eating, he just wasn't—

Izaya didn't like waiting. He was impatient and expected things to be done whenever he wanted or needed them to be done. He didn't like waiting, and so the fact that he managed to last an hour without receiving a reply from Shinozuka before he opened up the email again to reply was saying something about him indeed. He hated waiting, hated it, hated it, hated it.

'Shino-chan, are you hiding from me?
I said I was sorry – did I upset you?
I really am sorry, Shino~
Don't you want to ask me anymore questions?
X.'

Izaya didn't like being ignored. It was even worse than waiting. The little profile on the dating site had told Izaya that Shinozuka had read the email he had sent, and the first email too, and still the other man was not replying. There was that feeling of irritation bubbling under his skin again. He didn't like it. It made him feel dirty, it made him feel more unclean than when he had worn his bloodied shirt, it made his skin crawl more than when Shiki had touched him earlier. It wasn't Shiki's place, it wasn't— Izaya didn't like this. He didn't like these feelings. He had felt them before. This need to be acknowledged, this desire for the other person to just talk to them, to just see that he existed. It made him weak; it was pathetic, stupid, and idiotic that he was getting so worked up over Shinozuka not replying. He had told himself not to go there again, this wasn't love, this wasn't love, this wasn't—

Had Shinozuka seen who Izaya – no, no Nakura – really was and just fled without a word? He was sure that he hadn't looked like himself that much today, at least to people who didn't see him a lot or know him well. Well if that were the case then that was just wonderful wasn't it? That was the game over and done with before Izaya had a chance to end it his way, to end it the way it was supposed to end. Ha, ha. How was it supposed to end? He didn't know. This game was leading to ruin, though whether that was his or Shinozuka's he had lost sight of someway back now. Had Shinozuka really been hurt by Izaya – no, no Nakura – standing him up? He was sure that was likely with the other man's sensitivity to things like this. He had been nervous when Izaya or Nakura or whoever the hell he was had brought up meeting, and so maybe Nakura or Izaya or whoever the hell it was standing him up really had hurt him. But he had apologised, and he had meant it, because he had wanted to—

What if Shinozuka had gone out again, back to that bar in Shinjuku to meet another man like the one from before? What if Shinozuka had gone back home with another man all because Nakura – no, no Izaya – had stood him up? That was something that Izaya would do if he was hurt, ha, ha, he'd done it before after Shiki, hadn't he? He'd brought some gang member back to the headquarters before he'd left the next day, he'd brought him back and let the man take him in the bed that had belonged to him and to Shiki. That was what Izaya would do, but no, no Shinozuka wasn't like that, he wasn't. Shinozuka was everything Izaya wasn't. he was pure and he was innocent and he had that hopelessly wrong view of love that just wasn't true. Shinozuka was kind and he was— and Nakura, no, Izaya, no, Nakura, no Nazaya, no Izakura, no, no, he had tried to twist that, to turn it into something dark and dirty and wrong. Why had he even tried to do that? To turn Shinozuka into a twisted bitter ruin of a human like himself? Ha. Ha. Ha—

'You Have Mail~!'

The sound that Izaya had been waiting for only annoyed Izaya even more, as did the mocking letter icon with the flashing outline. Hey, hey, so he replied now did he? Just leave Izaya waiting; just leave him hanging, hey, hey. Treat them mean to keep them keen, hey, hey, that was Izaya's game; Shinozuka wasn't allowed to steal that. That was against the rules, wasn't it? This game didn't even have rules, but Shinozuka was breaking them all. He was a monster, a monster, a hopelessly endearing, idiotically romantic monster. Izaya's form shot forward almost immediately, eagerly, though his brain hissed at him for being an idiot, to click open the email that had arrived in his inbox, bearing Shinozuka's name.

Though when the email opened, and his eyes scanned the words, he almost wished he had never prompted a reply from the other man's mouth.

'This isn't working.
Don't email me again.'

Izaya knew too well what the tug in his chest meant. Izaya knew too well why he seemed to have forgotten the ability to breath. Izaya knew too well why his fingers felt numb and why his eyes couldn't seem to focus on the words on the screen anymore. It was foolish, it was crazy, it was utterly fucking stupid—

But Izaya knew all too well the symptoms of a breaking heart.

Fuck Shinozuka, and fuck love too. They were both monsters.

Monsters.

Monsters.