Author's Note: This is a real kind of 'filler' chapter, I guess. I've got a killer headache so I'm all tucked up in bed and feeling a bit sorry for myself, but I wanted to at least update something today. I promise the next chapter will be longer than this and go into more depth with feelings and things. Quite possibly there'll probably be some kind of other turning point or something too~.

Well, until then, enjoy~.

"I don't know," Tom's smooth voice cut through the air. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his trousers as he walked, down one of the quieter streets in Ikebukuro.

Shizuo was behind him, just a pace or two back. His hands were dipped into his pockets too, his head bowed towards the floor as Tom continued to talk. The other man, his boss, had been chatting for some time about the next client they were going to meet. No doubt it was some way for the dark headed man to make conversation or shake whatever gloom had been settled over the blonde from the moment they had met that morning. He had noticed that there was something wrong with his employee the moment Shizuo had opened the door. Tom had known him long enough to know when there was something off with him, to know when Shizuo's scowl was darker than normal, when he said even less than normal. Today was one of those days, and Tom knew better than to just ask him outright. Shizuo didn't deal well with blunt confrontation. Tom had learnt that, had learnt that it made the blonde uncomfortable and put him on the spot and activated some kind of fight or flight response that in Shizuo, was fight or fight.

"Something to do with a gambling habit I think, so he loaned some from me a year ago," his boss continued, now whistling out a low laugh. He raised a hand to the back of his head, lazily scratching it with slim fingers.

The blonde merely let out a little 'hn' in reply to which Tom smiled. Shizuo certainly hadn't been in a talking mood, not after what had transpired little before Tom had arrived to pick him up. There was no way that Shizuo could simply shake what the louse had said, not today at any rate. No. No.

The words hadn't stopped playing in his head, not once since he had left the apartment that morning, just an hour after the flea himself had left. What if I were to tell you I loved you? Would that change nothing? They were suffocating; they were drowning, pulling Shizuo under so that he could seem to escape them. He still wasn't sure what to make of them, those words, and had been focused on them since they'd reached his ears, all the way through the first five clients that Tom had taken him to see. They'd stopped for lunch too; Tom and he, in some little café that had served some of the best rice that he had tasted in quite a while. Shizuo had been quiet then too, thinking, thinking, thinking. Tom hadn't said anything much, just little conversations, small talk, and Shizuo was thankful for that, because he surely had noticed that there was something different about him. He was different. Everything was different.

Yeah, yeah, it would change everything, if Izaya said he loved him.

"I'm pretty sure he's good for this month's payment though, so try not to get pissed at him until after we've got the money," Tom chuckled, turning to throw a glance over his shoulder towards the blonde, grinning at him good-naturedly. Shizuo had to look up at that, offer a half laugh and a little crinkle of his own lips in reply. Tom was a good friend to him, he couldn't deny that, and he was grateful to the other man for trying to pull him from his thoughts, or— or—

Fuck this. Fuck everything. Why couldn't he stop thinking about it?

Izaya hadn't been intending to run into the monster on his trip to Ikebukuro, not this time.

The information broker had entered the streets to do just that, his work, the job that he loved. He had come to poke and prod and pull out all of the information that he had needed for the request Shiki had left him with. The older man had left his apartment not long ago, leaving when he had left. Izaya couldn't pretend that he wasn't crumbling down around himself, he couldn't pretend that he hadn't broken earlier, in front of the man he had once loved, once fucked, once been left broken hearted over. He couldn't, he shouldn't, but hey, hey, he was sure as hell going to try. Shiki had stayed until he had composed himself, until he had built the walls up again, higher and higher and higher than before. Shiki had tried to talk sense into the younger raven, but who can talk sense into someone who is coming undone, one little seam at a time?

But no, no, he hadn't been meaning to run into Shizuo. If anything, he had gone out of his way to avoid him, to avoid the blonde and any confrontation that would arise if the two clashed. Because things were different now, they really were. It wasn't like before. How could they fight and tease and chase knowing that they had spent one hot, sweaty encounter together? How could they do that knowing that they had come to, in some ways, care for the other? No. No. Things were different now. They were. Even if the oaf hadn't realised it fully yet, even if he hadn't accepted that yet, it was the truth. They'd shifted into some new natural order, some new foreign relationship that neither he nor Izaya would be able to pin down, to understand just yet. They were hardly friends, and yet— and yet they were no longer simple enemies. They didn't just hate each other anymore. No. No. No.

Izaya had stopped where he stood, in the centre of one little side-street, when he had spotted the blonde. His hands had stopped in their motion, had stopped swinging from side to side in favour of just hanging down, loose. His smirk had dropped, replaced with an expression as blank, as numb as what he felt inside. The monster had frozen when he had seen Izaya too. His whole form had gone ridged, his fists curling up tightly. Izaya watched his expression change, from that blank neutrality to annoyance to that pure hatred that Izaya was so used to seeing. When Shizuo looked at him like that, it was hard to imagine that anything had changed, it was hard to imagine that they had fucked, and that he had started to fall for the damn brute. Ha. Ha. Funny indeed.

The raven didn't flee like he normally did when Shizuo moved, the blonde's taut legs carrying him closer and closer to Izaya with that murderous look in his eyes. Izaya had heard the grunt of his name, the low string of curses that left the blonde's mouth, the growl, pure uncensored anger. Ha. Ha. Why was that so attracting right now, why was he feeling tingles at the sound of the oaf's voice calling his name. It was madness, he was mad. Funny indeed.

"I thought I told you to stay the fuck out of Ikebukuro?" Shizuo hissed when the gap had closed, when he had stepped so close to Izaya that he could pick out the colour of his eyes or spot the little dusting of freckles. Izaya still didn't run then, not like he used to. He still didn't run when Shizuo's hand reached up to close around his throat, when those lithe fingers tightened just a little, enough for him to feel the pressure, but not enough for the stinging pain to arrive or the oxygen to stop coming to his lungs. He wasn't running, not this time, not anymore. Hadn't he told Shizuo that? Hadn't he said that he was tired of running, that it wasn't working anymore? He wasn't running, no, no. Love was a monster, but Izaya wasn't scared of it anymore, he was facing it, head on, staring it straight into its eyes, liquid gold.

"Do it," Izaya hissed out. His arms were still by his side, not rising to attempt to throw Shizuo off or wriggle out. The grip on his throat was loose enough that he could do so if he wanted, that he could run and run and run from the beast, lose him in the maze of streets and laugh all the way. But no, no, things were different now, they were, and that wasn't how things worked anymore.

Shizuo didn't say anything. He just growled, his chest rising and falling along with the erratic beating of his heart, the rage bubbling in him. Izaya let his lips twist into a smile, small, bitter.

"Do it," he repeated, "If you hate me that much, Shizuo, then kill me,"

There was a pause. Quiet. Tom had stopped down the street when Shizuo had left his side. He was watching them now, his hands still tucked into his pockets and an odd look on his face as he watched the pair of them. Most of the others had fled on spotting him, and spotting Shizuo in the same street, though Izaya could see a few now, still lingering, watching.

"Stop saying such fucking— get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of Ikebukuro and get the fuck out of my life!"

"What if I were to tell you I love you, would that change nothing?"

"Get out,"
"Get out,"
"Get out,"

The words seemed to hang in the air around them both, echoing, echoing, echoing like some kind of ghost, some kind of bad memory or secret lullaby that only they could hear. Izaya was about to speak again, when the grip on his throat loosened, and the hand around it dropped. Shizuo's eyes dropped too, liquid gold turning to the floor, and then he was gone, walking away, turning his back on Izaya in all senses of the world.

It was madness, he was mad. But then maybe Shizuo was mad too. Maybe, in this funny little city, in the twisted streets of Ikebukuro, maybe here, they were all quite mad.

Ha. Ha. Funny indeed.