Author's Note: You know that Christmas present that I promised you? You're getting two now~. One can be found on my profile in the form of a little Christmas one-shot that I'll be posting tomorrow or later depending, and the other will be found in the next chapter that will be up tomorrow for sure. Everyone likes lemon-scented things don't they~?
Now the cryptic clue has been planted~ /Kiwi out/
Drums, drums, drums, that was what Izaya could hear. They were pounding inside of his head, as if a whole marching band had somehow wormed their way into his brain while he had been asleep and were now trying to bang their way out. He'd had migraines before, but nothing like this. Humans were completely idiotic, they were, why would they do this to themselves on such a regular basis? It was foolish, and the night before really wasn't equal to the dizzying pain and grogginess he felt now. Izaya was beginning to think his little experiment of the previous night wasn't worth it. Sure, sure, it had banished his troubles for a night, allowed him to revert back to the man he had used to be before this whole fucked up game, that carefree asshole that he was beginning to miss, but it hadn't kept them away. His problems were back, and now there was another one to add to the growing pile at his feet. Shizuo, Shinozuka, the two of them were one and the same now, and that just left Izaya in the middle of shit creek without a paddle or a boat to get back to shore. What was he meant to do next? This wasn't part of the game, he wasn't in control of it, and that scared him. When had his fingers slipped from grasping all of the strings of the game, when had his damn plaything flipped it around on him?
He couldn't really remember all that much from the previous night, just little snippets of things here and there when he focused past the pain splitting his skull to see them. He remembered the club, dancing with that man whose name he hadn't bothered to get. He remembered Shiki's face under the flash of the lights and being towed out of the club into the bitter air. That was where the gap in his night came, and he couldn't remember anything up until Shizuo had caught him when he had stumbled, when Shizuo had called him by that name. Nakura, Nakura, Nakura. Shizuo shouldn't have known that name, there was no reason for him to have known that name, and everything had clicked together. Izaya knew that even drunk, there was no way he could forget the fact that it had been Shizuo on the other end of the email chain. What were the odds of that? In a city full of how many people? Fate, destiny, mother fucking nature getting its own back, was that what this was?
Izaya remembered Shizuo leaving too. He remembered watching his back disappear out of the door without having tossed one object his way. Izaya remembered that he hadn't liked that feeling of being ignored. Izaya remembered wanting to know why Shizuo hadn't tried to kill him there and then. Shiki had stepped in then, when Izaya had let his legs give out to tumble to the floor, frowning, frowning, frowning. Who would have thought that the influence of alcohol would make things so crystal clear in his mind? Shizuo was Shinozuka, and Izaya was in love with Shinozuka, so that could mean only that he had fallen for the man he had meant to hate. That was something he had never factored into the end result of his game. Izaya remembered he had smiled at that, even now, Shizuo was refusing to conform to his rules, was still acting in a way that Izaya couldn't predict. Stupid, dumb, hopelessly fascinating brute, what was Izaya going to do with him?
Shiki had picked him up then, tucked an arm around his waist and taken him to bed, as he has used to do in the good old days. Izaya didn't miss them, he didn't, really. They were dark days; days of weakness and naivety that Izaya had long since rid himself of. Shiki could go fuck himself. If it weren't so cold outside, Izaya would have just left, he would have—
He had woken up in Shiki's bed this morning, and for the few brief moments before he was fully awake, had imagined that he really had fallen into the past; he had even gone so far as to question why Shiki wasn't in bed next to him, an arm draped over his waist like normal. Then the realisation had come crashing in like the light from his windows, too bright, stinging at his eyes and making the pounding in his head even worse.
He had quickly wriggled out from under the bed covers then, eager to get away from their stink of bad memories and a past he wanted to forget. Shiki had undressed him at some point the previous night he soon noticed, and had folded his shirt and trousers at the bottom of the bed so that he didn't crinkle them by sleeping in them; and Izaya felt sick, though whether that was his new hangover or the thought of Shiki touching his skin he didn't know, didn't care. There were no bruises, no hickeys or bite marks, so Izaya knew that nothing had happened, and that was good, it was. He didn't need pulling back into Shiki's world and bed when he had so much else to be dealing with in regards to Shizuo and Nakura and Shinozuka and himself and all those damn feelings swimming about in his heart, in his head, in his very being.
Shiki had been out when he had finished dressing and slipped into the other room, thankfully. Izaya didn't want to see his face, he just wanted to leave, go home and knock back some migraine tablets or five and curl up with some work for a client and mock Namie as usual. And take a nice, long shower while he was at it. Though he wasn't that in need of a wash, he felt dirty, he felt unclean, like there was something stuck to him that needed washing away with hot, hot water and a box of steam. That was what he wanted, but Izaya knew that people didn't always get want they want. He had stepped out into the morning air, hissing at the arrival of a sunny winter morning stabbing at his head, but his feet had not taken him in the direction of the station or Shinjuku itself as he knew would be the wisest option. They led him in the opposite direction, to an address that he had already memorised and that felt had felt so familiar even when he had first seen it. They led him through the streets and the park and through crowds of people to where he found himself now, stood in the dim hallway on the third floor of an apartment complex in Ikebukuro outside of a door that read '303' on it in fading gold lettering.
He'd been stood here for a while now, blinking at the wooden barrier with a frown and a scowl and his head still pounding and his stomach protesting it needed feeding with growls and grumbles and whines. When had he last eaten more than a few bites? No. No. Didn't matter, what mattered now was this game, in getting back in control, of finding out just where all the chips had fallen and what he had to do to make this whole sorry mess fix itself once again. It was stupid, it was a disaster, and he was ashamed that he had let it come so far, had let it get into such a sorry shape.
Izaya had been to this building before, only once, but he'd been here. When Shizuo had first moved in, Izaya had come to pay a visit, had messed with a few things in his apartment just to see how the oaf would react. How had he managed to forget it before? Had he really been that desperate to bring Shinozuka back into the game that his head had failed to notice his address was the same as Shizuo's? It was obvious now that he stood here, in that little hallway outside of his apartment, room 303. Nothing had changed since he had last been here, the paint on the walls was still flaking off in chips of buttery yellow, the light still didn't work and the hall was still dark. Shizuo's door handle was still wonky, and the apartment next door still had that little welcome mat outside reminding people to wipe their feet when they came in. Nothing had changed here, nothing, and it was as if the building was mocking Izaya. Nothing had changed for it, and everything had changed for him, his entire world had shifted like caught in the midst of some earthquake or hurricane or landslide and had just given out under his feet; it had just changed overnight, and left him falling, falling, falling.
The situation was ridiculous. Really, it was. To think that Izaya Orihara had come voluntarily to Shizuo Heiwajima's home, to think that Izaya Orihara had allowed himself not only to fall in love, but essentially to fall in love with his enemy, with one of his toys, with a beast like Shizuo Heiwajima. Yeah, yeah, it was fucking ridiculous, but Izaya wasn't laughing. Shizuo hadn't been laughing last night either. What did that mean? If neither of them found it funny, if neither of them could treat this as just another mind game, just another thing the other did to fuck off the other, what did that mean? It was serious, was that it? It meant something other than that? That one or the other or both of them had actually taken the budding romance with the other seriously? Izaya didn't want to think of the consequences of that. How could Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima ever do anything else but hate each other? It didn't work like that. Did it?
Izaya wasn't used to feeling uncertain about himself. He didn't like feeling uncertain, no, no. He was a vessel of self-confidence, glued together with a giant ego and a 'who really gives a shit?' attitude. He was used to knowing what he thought and felt about situation, but he didn't feel that here. If he thought of Shinozuka, then he knew that there was something there, some stirrings of love and attraction, he couldn't deny it anymore, there was no point. But what if he thought of Shizuo? He was a monster, a beast, a fucking— fucking— Izaya had never attempted to think of him in any other way. Shizuo was dumb; Shizuo was a monster, and that was that. If Shizuo had never seen anything else in Izaya, then he would see nothing else in Shizuo. Outward appearances, that was all. Izaya knew that the monster was capable of so much more, but he had never cared enough to look deeper before. But now— now that he had fallen— would that be his next move?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He had never meant for this game to go this far. He had never meant for this game to become this twisted and this messed up and for him to become so tangled up in it. He had never meant for himself to bring himself crashing down, lead himself to ruin with this game. That wasn't part of the rules, his rules, it was cheating, life was cheating, and Shizuo was cheating. It wasn't fair. It wasn't—
His hand clenched, forming a fist, and reached up to rap at the door, once, twice, and a third time, before it lowered. Izaya stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet. He wasn't sure what had prompted him to knock, to alert Shizuo – no; it was Shinozuka now wasn't it – to his presence in the building, but he wasn't going to take it back or flee before he arrived at the door. In actuality, he wasn't sure why he had come here anyway. Perhaps it had been some need to confirm for himself that Shizuo was Shinozuka, perhaps it had been because he had questions that needed answers, and this was the best place to get them. He wanted to know why Shizuo hadn't attempted to kill him the night before like he normally did, or so he would tell himself, that would mask any other reason he might have been there. Because why would he care whether or not Shizuo Heiwajima's feelings were real? It wouldn't change anything; it would change nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It would change everything, wouldn't it? It would. How could it not? Nothing would be the same if it was true that they had started to love each other, because how could they fight when deep down they had feelings, buried and hidden away. Was it possible to love part of someone and not the other? The thought scared him, it did. He didn't like it, the abyss that seemed to be approaching. They were both going to fall off, into the blackness, and who knew what would happen, who knew what they would become when they reached the other side?
His head was pounding, but Izaya could still hear the shuffle of footsteps on the floorboards on the other side of the door. There wasn't a peephole in the door, and he half wondered if it was a good thing or not if Shizuo knew it was him when he opened the door. His head was pounding, pounding, pounding, to the beat of his heart, to the beat of a marching band. There was a jingle of metal as Shizuo no doubt unlocked the chain on the door, the creak of the hinges as it whined open and then there was Shizuo, half dressed and seemingly having just gotten out of bed himself. His hair was sticking up in a casual disarray, gold tufts standing to attention. The look on his face on seeing Izaya in the doorway was priceless. It really was.
"Ah, Shinozuka-chaaan~" Izaya piped up, lips quirking into a smirk that he knew sent Shizuo's temper spiralling skyward. Why was he here, why, why, why? What had prompted him to do this? What, why, what was—
"Just who I was hoping to find, can Nakura-chan come in to play?"
Yeah, yeah, that look was priceless. Really, fucking priceless.